Lines
by TheWomanWhoCodesAndWrites
Summary: AU. Computer Science graduates Peeta, Finnick, and Gale never expected moving back home from the States to be more than ordinary. That was, until they started their jobs at Mockingjay Tech and met female Software Engineers Katniss, Annie, and Johanna, again. This is their story, as they tried navigating through the new territory and their intertwined pasts. Everlark Odesta Hawson
1. Chapter 1

**AN: **Hello! It's me again here, with my newest experimentation in writing.

This story is obviously AU, for all our beloved characters obviously aren't in the tech industry, and don't live in modern day. It's set in Sydney, Australia... because it's the city I'm most familiar with. I could have set this in many other places in the world, really, but Sydney is one of the loves of my life. Besides, I found it really hard to write about a city I've never been to without feeling like I would never be able to do it justice.

As I started writing, I realized how many technical terms, landmarks, and slangs I would have to explain for this to totally make sense for all my readers. Thus I'd copied some other authors' idea of having a footnote/glossary at the end explaining terms and places. Let me know if you think it's not really working; I can basically do it another way and integrate the definitions into the story.

Anyway, enjoy! Do tell me one thing, though: YAY or NAY. I'm curious of what people think about the concept. It's pretty much a fresh work in progress, and thus many things can be changed for the future.

**Disclaimer: **THG Trilogy and its characters belong to Suzanne Collins. I'm just borrowing our beloved characters to tell this little story I have in mind, of what would happen had they all been geeks/tech company workers. Apologies to all the parties offended by my decision of taking the characters into this AU :).

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**Chapter One**

**Peeta**

Today is the day.

... well, today is _supposed _to be _the _day, but from the way it looks now, it might not be the day at all.

Let's get started on how we got here. Alright. Firstly, there're Finnick and Gale. My... well, I guess my best mates, if you can call it so. It started with going to the same college up in California in the States, and bonded through being the only people who understood 'drongo'(1), 'happy little vegemites'(2), and 'chucking the meat on the barbie'(3), though we were in different years. And ended back here in Australia, where we all hailed from. We've just made a communal decision to move back from the States, after our few-year-stint working there. And apply for jobs at the Sydney branch of Mockingjay Tech, one of the world's biggest web tech companies, which we all got.

Thus here we are in Sydney. Finnick's hometown, which is way bigger and more metropolitan than mine and Gale's quaint, lovely RAdelaide (well, Adelaide, but we all call it RAdelaide because it's RAD). Arrived after five hours of delay on Saturday night. Straight away headed to Finnick's awesome grandma Mags' place in Chatswood(4), which was twenty minutes by train from the Sydney Central Business District, up north. Spent the entire Sunday conked out from jet lag and sleeping it through to Monday morning, until Gale woke up and woke the rest of us up with his Nerf water gun.

If everything went to plan, we would've been sitting at the reception of Mockingjay Tech's Sydney office right now, with five minutes to spare before our New Employee Induction starts. Gale has timed it to the seconds, being the Drill Sergeant he is. Seven thirty-six train from Chatswood, arriving seven fifty-nine at Town Hall station. From Town Hall, five minutes walk to Darling Harbour(5), where Mockingjay Tech is. There is supposed to be a coffee place at the bottom, and there would have been fifteen minutes for us to enjoy some before facing the day. Well, luck - a really bad luck, I must say - has it.

Cityrail - or _Cityfail, _as Finnick calls it - fails.

Our train stopped at Milson's Point(6). Power failure, they said. We stood there at the station for ten minutes, with perhaps a thousand or so others, before Drill Sergeant took initiative and paved our way out through the crowd. Ten more excruciating minutes in the taxi queue, and off we went. To the city. Over the Harbour Bridge - or _Coathanger_, as Finnick openly calls it. In the morning peak hour.

Needless to say, the plan is now history. Five minutes to the start of our training, and we are still running through Sydney Central Business District, in our dress pants and dress shirts.

"Sorry! I'm really sorry!"

That was Finnick, nearly colliding heads-on with a woman with four coffees in hand.

The pedestrian crossing light begins flashing a red man as soon as I reach it. Great. Add one more minute to the remaining travel time. Across the road, Gale and Finnick are already dashing through the next block of skyscrapers. Damn taller mates and their longer legs.

The light turns green for me. And so my journey continues. Two more blocks. That's all that it takes.

My light isn't actually green at that next crossing, but, whatever. There's no one around anyway. I don't know whether they fine people for jaywalking here, but, screw it. I just need to get to work right now. I really need to get to work.

445. 447. 449. And surely there it is - number 451. _The_ building.

"G'day," the security guard greets, as I step my foot into the skyscraper housing Mockingjay Tech. I try to reply with a smile, though my heart's thundering in my chest. One more minute till the start, if my smartphone's correct. Hell knows how long it would take to get up there to level twelve.

"Where were you?!" Gale demands, as soon as I join him and Finnick in the long lift queue.

"Captured by the red light," I try to joke, just to calm myself - and _Gale _- down. Obviously it doesn't quite work, for I'm still panicking and he's still scowling. Way to go, Mellark.

"Guess how many lifts are operating," Finnick says, turning to face both of us.

"One?" I guess jokingly.

"Correct!"

Oh, well. One minute's an impossible goal now.

Gale mutters something which sounds like profanity. As usual, he never enjoys his frustration, though. A second later, he's already looking around. Obviously trying to find a new way up.

"The fire escape's just there," he then hiss, pointing to our left with his eyes. "Let's go."

I was expecting a stampede of people following us - or at least some curious looks - as we broke apart from the queue, but, no. No single head turned, as everyone bows and bows over their smartphones. Technology addiction is also a problem in this part of the world, seemingly.

The fire escape's unlocked. As we push through it, I can see grey concrete and stairs. Lots of them, crisscrossing above our heads. All the way to thirteen, the topmost level. And we're going to twelve. Which means twelve flights of stairs, as we're currently at ground.

I guess we can all say bye to dry, nice-smelling shirts now.

Twelve flights of stairs, and, bingo! We're standing in front of a locked door, without that little white badge to swipe on that little black sensor. Turns out luck hasn't been ours.

"Fuck," Finnick swears openly, laughing in desperation. "We're late now."

"Yeah," I agree, chuckling along. Well, at least we tried. We can always explain to Mr. Abernathy later.

Gale scowls at us. I know too well how much he's appreciating this, being late and getting beaten by the systems and all. Raised as what people in the States would call "military brat", being late is never a question for him. I can see how pissed he is now.

"Screw this," he says, after a few seconds of scowls.

Then, just like that, he starts banging his fists on the door.

We watch with idiotic grins, as a few seconds passed and nothing happens. Then, someone opens the door from the other side. And nearly ran into Gale's fist.

Needless to say, Finnick and I both burst out laughing.

"Anything I can help with?" the red-haired woman on the door asks, once she's gotten over the shock of having three weirdos on her _fire door_.

"We're going to Mockingjay Tech," Gale answers, plain and hostile. "We need to get there now."

"Are you visitors?" the woman drills further.

"No," Finnick chimes in, with that voice I can best describe as his flirting voice. "We work there."

"Starting today," I add, just to avoid a further confusion. The woman's already shocked as, judging that look in her eyes.

"Oh!" she exclaims, her eyes flashing a bit in realization. "I see! Do you have your confirmation letters with you?"

I pull out mine, and I can see both my friends pulling out theirs. That's not all of it, though. Next question was,

"Photo IDs?"

And even after we pull out our Photo IDs, it's still not enough.

"Have you guys all cut your hair?"

I don't even know who's answering, or if anyone answers at all, for I'm too busy restraining my laughter.

That seems to be the last question, though, for she lets us in afterwards.

And so here we are, standing in the middle of Mockingjay Tech's reception, which is a stark contrast from the gray staircases in its forest green glory. Definitely not late, for there also stands four other new employees, gathering in a group close to where we stand.

"Alright, guys!" the redhead - who turns out to be the receptionist - calls happily, at ten minutes to nine. "Come collect your new badges here!"

We line up for our badges. There's this immense happiness in me when I receive mine. And, an immense regret. When they asked me to send over a headshot which best represents me, I'd never thought that they would end up using it as my badge photo. Had I known about that, I would've put on something more respectable than that old, paint-stained Coldplay T-shirt.

Well, it could have been worse. Take Finnick, for example.

"Finnick, the badging team said sorry about this, but they've had to photoshop a shirt onto your picture. Some of our colleagues here find bare chests offensive."

"Even mine?" Finnick asks, clearly a bit hurt from the treatment.

The receptionist - Lavinia, from what I can read on her badge - just ignores him and calls the next person in line.

Thankfully, I don't have to deal too long with Finnick's bruised ego. As soon as the last person has their badge, out appears the man himself. Haymitch Abernathy. Technical Site Lead(7) for Mockingjay Tech Australia. Or, to put it in layperson's term, The Big Boss of This Office.

"Well," he says - I don't know to whom, but most likely to himself -, "don't we have such strapping Lads here today?"

And that's true, actually. There are seven new employees here. And zero females.

"Welcome to Mockingjay Tech! And congratulations for making it here. Such a long journey, I bet, for _some _of you. I know none of you got in here the first try."

Seems like the boss's a very honest person. And yes, I didn't get in the first time - and neither did Finnick or Gale. Apparently, less than ten first applicants get an offer from Mockingjay Tech, each year. That's just how life works here, in this company which apparently holds ten percent of the traffic in the world wide web.

No one responds to that, so he just turns around on his heels and starts walking back into the open door. Being the front of the line, as of currently, I just start following him hesitantly. Turns out that this was the right thing to do, though, for he says nothing.

We are led through rows and rows of desks. Each with two monitors, and a person in jeans and T-shirt staring at them. With our dress pants and shirts, we easily look plain of out place here. Even the boss himself wears jeans, as I slowly realised. Black jeans, but, still jeans.

We halt, when he stops in front of a door and peers in from the little strip of clear glass between the door and the wall.

"This is supposed to be our room for this morning," he announces, with a little bit of a smirk. "But it's eight fifty eight now, and thus we can't yet have our claim of it."

"Aren't we supposed to start at eight thirty?" Gale asks, half scowling and half frowning.

The boss snorts at this.

"That's on paper," he then answers, with this clever smirk on his face. "The practice is, it starts at nine. And no one questions this, so let's just wait."

Even though I didn't turn aside to see Gale's face, I can already feel his faith in the company decreasing. A little bit.

Five minutes later, and we're still standing. Looks like whoever is in the room isn't going to finish.

"Alright, alright," the boss mumbles to himself, throwing one last dirty look inside the room. "Time to oust Little Miss Jo there."

Then, just like that, without any knocks or warning, he yanks the door open.

The room, which was red all over, contains no one but a spiky-haired, small female sitting on the table with her laptop. She turns to the door upon hearing the commotion, and returns the boss's snarl with a near identical manner.

"Sup, Boss?" she asks him, crossing one of her frayed-jeans clad legs over another.

"Come out of there, won't you?" the boss responds, snarling back. "Your time's up. Learn to live with that."

The woman sighs and rolls her eyes.

"Fine, Haymitch," she says, as she jumps down on her feet. "All yours now."

With that, she folds her laptop's screen and walks out. I can't help but noticing the way her wide-set eyes examines each of us as she walks past. She's sizing us up.

"That's Johanna," the boss explains voluntarily, as we all pile in into the room. "One of our lead Infrastructure Engineers(8). Never use the 'how many tries' argument to challenge her. She got in here her first try. You can, however, use the height argument. She's five foot three or something like that, if I see it correctly."

Some of my fellow newbies start chuckling, Gale and Finnick included. I don't see the point in laughing over it, though, so I just stay quiet.

"Alright," Haymitch says, looking amused at himself, as everyone settles down. "Who among you all is Peeta Mellark?"

"I am, Sir," I say, without too much thinking.

"Very well," Haymitch responds, his head turned to me. "Though I would rather you drop the 'Sir', though. The last time I checked, I haven't been Knighted by The Queen."

Everyone laughs again. And this time, I play along. This one seems funny, after all.

"Look, Kid," Haymitch continues, once we all quiet down again. "I have to be honest that I don't know what to do with you. In history, the Sydney Office has never had a new Product Manager(9) before. We've only had transfers."

All eyes are on me now. This is getting really awkward.

"But anyway," the boss continues, pulling out a ten-times folded, crumply paper from his pocket. "I've called my old buddy Chaff up in New York, and here's the checklist he gave me. Hopefully I'll get this right."

And so, begins my first day in the office.

The training itself lasts until just before lunch. It's full of technicalities and pretty much boring, and quickly gets really blokey with our crass boss and seven of us boys there. Now, don't get me wrong. Blokey's good, most of the times. It does get ugly at times, though, such as that one time where one of those four boys I haven't yet known makes this joke about the dating policy. Or that one time where another one makes that comment about "time of the month" and its unfairness towards innocent men.

I might have had my fair share of dating and messing around, but I definitely wasn't brought up to think that way about girls. Really.

Lunchtime feels like a refreshing breeze, to me. Gale and Finnick seem to share my opinion about that gang of four we were stuck with, so the three of us made our own way to one of those cafes lacing the street down there. In retrospect, I should have prepared a sandwich or so, but this morning, I was too busy anticipating to be able to think about lunch. Perhaps, tomorrow.

"Let's go there," Finnick decides, pointing at a small-ish cafe at the corner of the block. "Bits for bites. A techy cafe, for techy people, I guess."

Well, I don't think Finnick's way of deciding where to eat is the best of all, but it looks interesting enough that I just leave it up to him. I don't feel like debating about eateries with him today. As usual, Gale just follows through with what we decide. He's never fussed about food - one other thing his military upbringing brought, I guess.

The cafe's pretty jam-packed, but there are still empty spaces on it. Finnick goes first and places his order quickly. Without even looking at him, I know where he's going. It's no secret he likes sitting near girls, in the hope of chatting up one or two. He's truly a casanova, though not a jerk.

He's already sitting at the corner table, though - and sulking a bit - when I finish ordering. Looks like he's just gotten his first rejection of the day.

"No luck?" I ask him, just to get him happy again. Once he's all vented out, he's usually back into his happy chappy self.

"Luck's not mine today," he answers, leaning over the table to be closer to my ear. "See that table behind you? I know a girl there, but apparently they're having their Mockingjay Female Engineers weekly catchup or something like that."

Now, that is interesting. I've never heard of such society before. Which is shameful, for I like the sound of it. Even though I'm not a woman, I know enough female classmates to be able to tell how hard it is to be one in tech.

Behind Finnick is a mirrored wall, which helps me looking at the table he's just pointed at. There are probably seven or eight women there - some young, and some middle-aged. That Johanna girl from this morning is there, sitting at the head of the table slamming her fist fiercely on it. Looks like she's somewhat of a leader there. On her left side, sits another young woman, green-eyed and approachable-looking. Judging the way Finnick's currently eyeing her, that is definitely the one he knows.

"Remember Annie?" Finnick asks me.

"Yeah."

Of course, I remember 'Annie'. How could I not remember her, if everything Finnick ever talks about when pissed drunk was _Annie_? Well, more exactly, not her, but his fantasies and thoughts about her.

"That's the girl."

I take another look at her, on the mirror. The girl's quite pretty, actually, true to Finnick's taste of women. I don't get to see the rest of her friends, though, for Gale's approaching. Not our table, but _their _table. I watch from the mirror, as he goes straight to a woman sitting across the Annie girl. The one who sits with her back to the mirror, her dark hair in a single braid down her back.

"Well done," Finnick comments, as our friend finally joins us on our table. "Looks like you're already picking up."

Gale just snorts at his remark.

"Dude," he says, looking at Finnick. "That's _the _cousin."

And then, just then, the dark haired girl turns around.

Gale's cousin. Katniss Everdeen.

The girl who was, for those last two years of my high school life, my secret, unattainable crush.

I don't know why Gale hasn't yet told us she works at Mockingjay Tech too.

**to be continued...**

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**Glossary**

1 An insult meaning 'really really stupid'

2 Line from the famous jingle for Vegemite, a yeast extract spread signature of Australia

3 barbie = barbeque

4 Chatswood is one of the suburbs at the Northwest of Sydney city. It's popular with families, and is one of the major suburbs.

5 A waterfront precinct in Sydney city. Not where the Opera House and Harbour Bridge is. It's south of that, and it's where the Star Casino is.

6 The Sydney Harbour Bridge connects Sydney city and North Sydney, another Central Business District across the water. Milson's Point is the last stop before the bridge, if you're travelling from the north into the city.

7 Basically, Technical Site Lead is the boss of all the software engineers in the office.

8 Infrastructure Engineer is one of the terms used to refer to software engineers whose main responsibility is to keep a website up and running. They do the capacity planning, monitor for breakages, and perform first aid on a failing system. They are the backbone of a web company.

9 A Product Manager is basically the bridge between the Software Engineers and the employees handling the business side of the tech company. They discuss strategies with both the engineers and the other employees, and is responsible for making sure a project goes well, from conception until launch. They communicate with people and do extensive research on user satisfaction and requirements. They need to have some programming skills to, for they need to be able to communicate with the Software Engineers.

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Okay. So we've gotten here.

... YAY or NAY? Do let me know, for I'm curious :).


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: **Hello. Me here. And yes, because I'm here, it means that... _Lines_ will definitely continue :). I've got the whole plot in my head and snippets written here and there. It's pretty fluffy compared to my canon and canon-divergence works (which are pretty dark/angsty), though there would still be angst and hurt/comfort here and there especially when we talk about the characters' pasts.

Many special thanks to these following people: Desert the Fennec Fox, De-BardatBoston, Guest102503, bluedragonfly, 'Guest', ashjoh123, Grrrrriff, and LibraryofBabel for reviewing and letting me know that this is actually a pretty good idea. Thanks to all of you who have followed this story: De-BardatBoston, LeslieMellark, Macy8741, LibraryofBabel, and LondonJewel; and to all of you who have favourited: Desert the Fennec Fox, De-BardatBoston, and LeslieMellark. And a round of thanks to all my silent readers too. The story's got a pretty good hit count, and I'm so happy :).

This chapter is told by Katniss, and focuses on her thoughts on Peeta, her thoughts on her life and her friends, and a little bit of backstory for her and Peeta. Compared to the other couples' backstories, Katniss and Peeta's a pretty light-hearted one, I must say. You'll see Finnick and Annie's backstory in the next chapter, and Gale and Johanna's non-story-backstory later in the story, but the focus's on Everlark now.

Anyway, enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** THG Trilogy and its characters belong to Suzanne Collins. I'm just borrowing the characters here, and some canon elements to keep the characters who they are in the books personality-wise. I don't intend anyone to be OOC or do another round of lets-borrow-famous-books'-characters'-names (not that I have anything against people who do so, but I don't do it :)).

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**Chapter Two**

**Katniss**

There's a glitch somewhere in the database, considering how we keep serving the wrong videos for all requests we have.

Oh, _shiz_.

Well, at least this is the internal build, or 'dogfood'(1) as we call it. Not the production build, which all our users are using. I have three days to fix it and check the fix in to our current in-progress release. Seems like plenty of time.

_ping._

Johanna's name flashed on the browser tab where I keep my internal chat page open. I'm not one to ignore chat requests, usually, but knowing Johanna as well as I do, it was most probably something really unimportant. Or one of her 'misogynist' rants, which I both wholeheartedly agree with and despise because it wastes time.

_ping. ping. ping._

And here comes the ping attack. If I don't answer immediately, I'll come back to my chat tab to see "Brainless?" written a hundred times down the little window.

Not that it scares me anymore. I'm immune to it now.

So I decide to go back to fixing my bug, and ignore my chat window completely. I've narrowed the cause down to two of our fifty or so tables, when something sharp pokes me on the back of my head. Great. The Jo Mason herself is here. Reflected on my clear water cup, actually, in her sleeveless bustier top and frayed jeans.

"Remember the deal with pings?" she attacks me, as soon as I've spun my chair around to face her. "I ping. You answer. Not a big effort on your end, Brainless."

"I'm busy," I defend myself, crossing my arms on my chest. "'sup?"

She lunges past me and locks my screens. Before I could protest about it, though, she's pulled me up and dragged me to the nearest empty meeting room, slamming the door behind her.

"Guess who's on my team," she snarls out, as soon as the door clicks shut.

"My cousin?" I guess. In all honesty, I don't really know who else it could have been, that could disturb Jo that much she really needed to talk to me about it. Hell. If Gale hasn't surprised me with his appearance and his news that he now works here at lunch today, I wouldn't even have a guess. That's how much I care about who's new in the office, I guess.

"Nope," Jo responds, a cynical smile on her face. "His friend. That guy who creeped Annie out."

Ah, yes. The sleaze from lunch, who insisted he knew Annie and wanted to join our weekly women's lunch. Judging Annie's reaction, it's very likely that she does know him... negatively. As in, she knows him, but not necessarily likes him.

"Congrats," I congratulate Jo, mirroring her cynical smile. "A fine engineer you've got there, Jo."

"Well," Jo responds, looking both amused and pissed. "He's not actually that bad, really. Apart from the slight social creepiness, there's nothing else wrong with him. Well, your cousin's another story, but the guy's pretty good."

I laugh. I know my cousin, and he can be the world's biggest jerk sometimes.

"What has Gale done this time?" I ask her.

"Oh, so that's his name," she responds, somewhat carelessly. "Anyway. He came up to this new guy Finnick and started this stupid conversation of how he'd missed seeing _females _at work. I tapped him on the shoulder and requested that he scooted over to Sales instead. Everyone there's a girl, right?"

I laugh, for Jo is again right. And frankly, even though I mightn't have done the same, I do like the treatment she gave my mysterious, jerky cousin Gale. Guys like that deserve it.

"Pity he's such a misogynist, for he's actually pretty gorgeous," Jo continues her rant, looking up wistfully for a bit. "Anyway. That's all I need to tell you, Brainless. Just in case big boy comes crying to Haymitch and I get into trouble again."

"Nah, he won't," I answer confidently. "He's not one for admitting he's owned. There was this joke when we were in high school that his ego fills the town."

Jo finds it funny, apparently, for the next second, she's doubled up in laughter and is busy banging on the meeting table with her fist.

"Alright," she says, after she can pause long enough to speak. "Time to go back to work. Catch you at home time, Brainless."

She storms out and leaves me alone at that. Classical of Johanna, I must say. I laugh to myself as I stalk out behind her and make my way back to my desk. Time to go back to work, before home time comes. Which will be in a little bit under two hours, for it's two thirty already now. Jo and I - and Annie, though she didn't really need it - made this pact that we'll always go home together at four twenty five now. Otherwise, we'll just work straight from seven thirty to seven thirty again, which will be twelve hours. Way too long for what we're paid for(2), and way too long for our mental healths.

There's a little circle of engineers in my work area when I get back. And that only means one thing. A standup meeting is going on. Don't know for what. It's unscheduled.

"Ah, here she is," Boggs, our Team Lead Manager(3), says as I stalk back to my desk. "Katniss, come here. Let me introduce you to our new Product Manager, Peeta."

With a quick look at the man in the middle of the circle, I recognise him as one of Gale's friends from lunch. No, not the pervert. The other one, who actually looks nice and approachable. The one who, in my frank opinion, seems way too nice to be my cousin's friend. Though it could be that he's friends with my cousin because he's too nice.

And so I come over to the circle, and put on one of those smiles you've learned after a few months at work. Jo and I call it the "work-smile", for there's no way we're gonna flash it to anyone outside of work. It's fake. And formal. And just overall a bit disgusting.

"Katniss Everdeen," I introduce myself. "I'm a Software Engineer for MockingVid. Nice to meet you."

"Well," the man himself answered, smiling somewhat nervously. "We've kind of met before, I guess, but nice to meet you anyway. I'm Peeta Mellark. Your new Product Manager."

Alright. So this is the guy who's replacing Mitchell, who had a mental breakdown and had to go back home to the States. It's a bit of a shame we're not getting a girl, but I guess we can do much worse. At least he seems like a women-friendly guy.

Oh, well.

It's a bit intriguing that he said "we've kind of met before". I don't think sitting on nearby tables at a cafe at lunch counts as "meeting", but anyway. My bug's more important now. I don't have time to pursue little things and overanalyse people's speech.

Thus, I get back to my desk and pour myself back into my work. MockingVid is my lover, in all sense. I live for it, and only it gives me live. I have to get it right, up and running the whole time. Of all people here, I'm sure I'm the only one who truly cares about it as a thing. Not just as a job or a piece of accomplishment.

My home-time alarm rings, just in time for me to get the fix in and submitted. With a happy sigh, I lock my screen and grab my satchel from my bottom drawer. There's always this rush of happiness I feel every time I fix a problem. It's like my life has a purpose, and I've made things better for the world.

I'm sure the huge-as grin I have on my face didn't go away even for a second throughout my little journey to the lift foyer, for my cheeks kind of hurt when I get there.

"You look so happy," Annie comments, as I join her in front of the lifts. "What's the good news?"

"Just fixed a problem," I explain. "Lucky I noticed it. It nearly made it to production."

"Did I just hear production?" Jo barges in. For someone who's standing more than two metres away from us, she surely has a good hearing. Actually, she might have this selective hearing for "production", "collapse", "over-capacity", and other infrastructure engineering related terms. She does take her job really seriously. Perhaps more seriously than I take mine.

"Yeah," I answer. "Thank this friend of yours it doesn't make it there, Brainless."

"Sweet, Brainless," she responds, flashing a snarl at me. "You know the deal, right? Break the production system and I'll break your neck."

"I know," I reply, rolling my eyes at her. That's definitely empty threat - or half empty. Jo won't break your neck. She'll just scream at your face and call you some names, _after_ she'd fixed what you broke.

_ding_. Here comes our lift.

We pile in, all three of us. Annie, Jo, then me. It has always been the three of us, since the year eleven. Since I moved here from Adelaide, after that accident which killed my father and my little sister Prim; since Jo moved here from Seattle in the States after an unspeakable tragedy. From those days at the back of Software Design and Development classroom in our private girls' high school, to the colourful days of Uni(4), and finally through to here, to Mockingjay Tech. No one had ever seen it working, before we showed them otherwise. The kind, shy, deeply traumatised Annie Cresta. The brash, sarcastic, equally deeply traumatised Johanna Mason. And the quiet, skeptical, way less traumatised though in no ways less sad Katniss Everdeen. Who would've known that a chance meeting at dr. Aurelius's waiting room one Saturday morning would bring us three misfits together.

"You girls have plan tonight?" Annie asks, as we pile out at the ground floor.

"A date with Kitty Kat and some trashy movies, I guess," Jo answers for us, before I can even think about it. She's always the one to barge in, the one to speak up - even in the most inappropriate of times. "You have hot alternative dates for us, Crazy?"

"Mum's gonna make your favourite lasagne tonight," Annie explains, totally ignoring Jo's jibe about 'hot dates'. "She asked if you girls want to join us for dinner."

Of the three of us, Annie's the only one who still has the luxury of living at home and eating home-cooked meals every day. She's the only one who still has a mother - or a family, to be more exact. Parents and two older brothers. All Jo and I have is a bachelor uncle and a bachelorette aunt respectively, the kind who would love you and take care of you when you need it but otherwise would rather have you out of the house. We've been sharing this two-bedroomer across the bridge in Pyrmont(5) since we were done with our Computer Science degrees, and have since become each other's next-of-kin. Nowadays, I'd put Johanna's name in my next-of-kin information form before I put my Aunt Effie's. And she'd put mine before her Uncle Blight's.

"Hmm," Jo answers, somewhat tentatively. She turns to Annie, as we step out of our building and into the half-packed CBD streets. "Is Mike single again?"

I can't help but snorting. Mike, Annie's second oldest brother, somehow has the worst of luck with women. Well, more like bad taste, actually. Talk women who are just pretty to look at - with no common ground or anything he can talk about with them. It shouldn't be that surprising that none of his so-called relationships never last past three months.

Now, the reason why Jo asked about him. Well, not because she likes him. He's too much like a brother for both of us, having been the driver and protector when we went to eighteenth birthday parties in year twelve. It's because Annie's sweet, well-meaning mother always has this agenda to matchmake Mike with either Jo or me. Something about "good, respectable, God-fearing girls" or something. Which is misleading, because I'm not sure that we're 'good' in traditional sense, even if we survived two years in that strict, religious girls' school.

"Well... yeah," Annie answers, sounding a bit uncomfortable. She knows well how the saga goes, and in all her kindness, feels bad about what her Mum is doing. "I've been trying to tell her that none of you is interested, but looks like she'll keep going until you both get boyfriends."

"Or he gets married," I cut in with a small smile. The subject of boyfriends is always a sore subject for both me and Jo. For entirely different reasons, but, still.

"Yeah. That's way more possible," agrees Jo.

"So," Annie clears her throat, changing the subject back to the original thing. "Are you guys coming?"

I eye Jo, who eyes me back and gives me one of those 'meh' shrugs.

"I'll pass tonight, actually," I finally decide. "Tell your Mum our Thursday night shopping spree is on though."

"I'm with Brainless then," Jo tags along, clearly not wanting to be there alone with Mrs. Cresta and her well intentions. "We have plenty of trash to catch up on."

It's then done. Easy as pie, no hard feeling. That's the norm with us girls. We've all been hurt by bigger things, that small things like this don't matter.

We reach Market Street(6), and it's goodbye from then on. Annie needs to head East to the Hyde Park(7) bus stops to catch her bus back to the Eastern Suburbs. Jo and I need to head West to the Pyrmont Bridge ramp to cross back to our unit.

"Whoa, that's a Marilyn moment," Jo cackles out, as a look over our shoulders confirms that Annie's having a difficulty with the wind and her wide-skirted dress, and is busy holding it down while walking. As luck has it for us today, we don't have to deal with such thing. Our jeans are fine.

"Don't understand her sometimes," I comment, chuckling to myself. "Skirts are very impractical."

"Says you," Jo disagrees. "Skirts are fun. Only, not in the wind. Now, you are _boring_."

She looks me up and down, as if sizing my outfit for today. I can't help but feeling a bit self conscious. Among the three of us, I can say I'm the one who cares the least about fashion. Five pairs of jeans, around twenty different T-shirts. That's my whole work wardrobe, essentially. Oh, and some shorts for summer. And Jo, Dear Jo, never takes it too kindly. I take a deep breath, preparing for yet another round of abuse at my favourite cookie monster T-shirt.

"Everdeen," she eventually says, after a few seconds of that famous size-you-up glare. "That T-shirt's fading. You might want to get another one. I'll find you a good deal online."

And that is, people, a jibe to my online shopping habit. And what my dear bestie calls an "el cheapo crusade", though to me it's merely thriftiness.

"That would be great," I decide to play along. "Thanks."

She winks at me and cackles, doubling up like a madman in the middle of the bridge packed with pedestrians and cyclists alike. What a friend I have in her, really.

* * *

It's much later in the day - one and a half trash movies later, more exactly - that I slowly start remembering where I might have seen my new Product Manager before.

Jo and I are making dinner. No. We are heating up random things and leftovers for dinner, like we've always done since we arrived here in Sydney. A frozen bag of sausage rolls which look alright. Corn kernels from a packet - just add butter and it's perfect. A bag of cheese buns picked up from the bakery yesterday afternoon.

Cheese buns.

_Mellark _cheese buns.

And suddenly my mind flies away, to that day ten years ago back home in Adelaide.

_It wasn't the best day of my life, to start with. I had a Programming Competition to participate in that day, and yet, I woke up late. As in, seriously late. Thirty minutes to get ready and to make it there to the university where it was held._

_Mum and Dad had already left when I woke up, so I was stuck with no other option than a cab. After putting on my school uniform and doing a hasty braid on my hair, I was off to find one. I was lucky to find one five minutes later, on the main street. And was lucky that I had just enough in my wallet to pay for the fare._

_I arrived just in time, before registration closed. After a blur of a morning working on problems, it was finally over. Time to take the bus back home._

_I was barely out of the building, when hunger took over and I started blacking out. As I sank on the ground, I realized I haven't eaten anything since the morning - there was simply no time._

_It was where Peeta Mellark came into play, really. I remember sitting next to the door of the building I just exited, leaning against the wall and looking up at him. Blonde, blue-eyed, and kind-looking. Closer to the boy next door than the boy from that posh private boys' school in town, whom he was._

_"You alright?"_

_His voice. It sounded concerned, genuinely concerned. Not just politely concerned as I had expected him to be._

_"Yeah," I answered. "Just..."_

_I didn't have to finish that statement. My stomach grumbled, as if stating its intention to help me._

_Something lit up in his eyes. He pulled out a brown paper bag from his bag and grabbed my hand to put the thing on it._

_"For you," he said, his voice kind and gentle. "I brought too much for myself."_

_And that invoked an anger in me._

_I was angry that he assumed I was a beggar, that I needed his charity. I was angry that he was that quick in offering me food. Did I look that poor to him? I might not have gone to a private school of comparable reputation - not even a private school of any kind - but I did have dignity. My Dad worked a honest job, and so did my Mum. I just happened not to have any money on me that day._

_But I needed the food. I needed to be able to go home._

_"Mr. Mellark!"_

_Someone called him from afar. His teacher, most likely. Looking stern and unforgiving, just like many other teachers from those private schools._

_"I have to go," he then told me, as he stood back up. "They're waiting for me. Hope you get better soon!"_

_And with that, he ran off to catch up with his school's entourage. Leaving me with this brown bag, with a red "Mellark" logo on it._

"HELLO? EARTH TO BRAINLESS?"

Johanna's voice and her face - an inch from mine - snaps me back to reality. I must have spaced out or something, for the bag I'm holding is now empty. Looking down on our four-person IKEA dining table, I realize I've just poured the entire content on it. Six buns. Six cheese buns scattered on our dining table, crumbs and all.

"Withdrawal?" Johanna asks me cynically, looking at me sideways. "You looked seriously dazed."

Well, she knows I'm not addicted to anything, so, surely, she's just trolling like usual.

"Umm, well," I answer, knowing that I can't hide anything from her, especially a guy who works where we work. "I think I might know Gale and Mr. Sleazy's friend from before."

"Where?" Johanna digs in. "Home?"

"Yep," I answer. "Met him in a Programming Comp ten or so years ago. No wonder he said he'd known me from before."

"Awww," Johanna mocks. There's this glint in her eye - a very evil one, I must say. "Did you guys hook up or something?"

"Get your brain out of the gutter," I mutter to her, waving her off. "We were sixteen, for Heaven's sake. And don't forget we were geeks, too."

Johanna cackles and bangs her fist on the table - again. I watch her with folded arms, as the cheese buns bounce in front of us.

"BS," she calls, gasping for air. "Bull. Shit. I've never seen you dazed like that, Everdeen. Tell Mummy Jo what's going on here."

"Fine," I relent. I prop myself down on my usual chair, my hands gathering the poor, scattered cheese buns. "I was fainting from hunger. And he gave me a cheese bun from his parents' bakery."

"Awww," Johanna coos again. In all honesty, I find it hard not to smack her on the face with this cheese bun I'm holding. I love her to bits, but, God, she's so infuriating.

"That's the extent of it, I guess," I cut it off at that, deciding not let her have her field day. "I guess neither of us have changed much since we could still recognise each other."

And with that, I stuff a cheese bun into my mouth, just so that I can stop thinking about Peeta Mellark and that one cheese bun.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 From the phrase 'eat your own dogfood'. 'dogfood' products are less stable than the consumer version. In other words, the employees of the company are the lab rats for the new versions of the product.

2 Tech companies often have this deal in which you have fully flexible work hours, as long as you complete a certain number of hours per week. In Australia, the maximum an employer can make their employees do without having to pay for overtime is 38 hours per week.

3 A Team Lead Manager is a software engineer who leads a team and perform management work for the team members, such as performance review and dealing with issues, _while_ doing their programming work too (not like a 'Manager' in other kind of companies whose only responsibility is looking after people).

4 Uni is slang for university.

5 Pyrmont is a suburb right next to Sydney city. It's separated from the city by Pyrmont bridge, a pedestrian-only bridge across the Darling Harbour. It's popular with office workers for its proximity with the CBD.

6 Market Street is the street in Sydney CBD which connects Hyde Park to Pyrmont bridge through the CBD.

7 Hyde Park is a big park in the city. It has a war memorial and some fountains. A lot of landmarks: The Sydney Tower, Saint Mary Catholic Cathedral, and The Royal Botanical Gardens are located around it.

* * *

Alright, all. That's the second chapter. Thanks for reading and making it here.

I'm telling the story from all the six P. , so next chapter will be in Finnick's. There we'll visit his and Annie's backstory, and get an insight of his days as an Infrastructure Engineer under Johanna's rule. The plan is to focus on each person's individual stories and thoughts for the initial six chapters, then move on and get them to tell each others' stories alongside their own (sometimes it is fun to watch a romance unfolding from another person's P.O.V, right? ;)).

Feedbacks, constructive criticism, questions, are all welcomed.

The next update will be within a week from now. Till then, have a good week!


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: **Hello! Thanks for reading. Welcoming my new followers Valicaso, SchattenLicht, happyhungergames99, pinkfides09, Rexy-cola, violetelavender, and iloveucla. Thanks to Valicaso, ashjoh123, and pinkfides09 for favouriting, and special thanks to my reviewers De-BardatBoston, 'Guest', ashjoh123, happyhungergames99, Guest102503, and KittyCatnipKatniss. You all rock :).

So here's chapter three, told from Finnick's perspective. Here we'll see a bit of his past with Annie, and explore the person he is in this story. I need to warn you in advance that I've given him a dark past in order to make it parallel with The Hunger Games trilogy and shape him into the person Suzanne Collins wrote him as. I'm not delving much into the details, though, for I've intended 'Lines' to be a happy, light-hearted, fluffy story.

Hope you enjoy :).

**Disclaimer: **THG and its characters belong to Suzanne Collins. I'm just borrowing :).

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Finnick**

Two pages in the middle of the night. What a nuisance to my handsomeness sleep.

And just like a cruel mockery, my brain starts springing up to full alertness the second I close my laptop. Even with those bloody problems fixed, I still can't sleep.

Sucking on sugar cubes doesn't help, so I stop after my third one. I shouldn't have too much anyway - or any, according to my GP(1) back in the States. I'm turning thirty next year. I won't be burning it all off as well as I did as a teenager.

It was two AM. Mags and the two idiots in our spare rooms are still sleeping, like normal people do on a weekday. Hmm, what day is this, again? Right. Friday. Twelve days on the job, and that little devil Johanna already gave me my first oncall(2) shift. Maybe that's her way to make me feel welcomed in the team, I guess. Or could be that she's just testing me. Whatever it is, I don't really mind. She's pretty cool, actually, once you know her. Somewhat like one of the boys and somewhat like a girl too.

I close my eyes and inhale, having a momentary pause from the world.

These past two weeks has been really crazy, getting adjusted to the new job and rediscovering Sydney and all. But crazy is better than boring, to me. I can't sit around having nothing to do. _Everything _will come back. They will...

_Damn_. I need to do something now, before my head's full of those negative thoughts again. I don't have the strength and thickheadedness Gale has to walk around with them all the times. I'd rather distract myself.

So I walk over to my safe deposit and take my rope out. It's yellow and fraying now, and at this rate, I won't last long. But it's my rope. I've been knotting it for perhaps close to sixteen years now. Could have gotten a new one, really, but I didn't want to. I don't want to.

They taught me plenty of knots when I was in the Boy Scouts, back in primary school(3). Back when I was eager and wide eyed and innocent. Back when the world was simple.

I sit and begin knotting, to bring the happy times back to me. To bring my Mum back to me. My rope was her curtain tassel before it was my rope.

Coming home here was a rather hard decision. If it wasn't for Mags, and wasn't for my two idiotic yet awesome mates-slash-little-brothers Peeta and Gale, I would probably stay in the States my whole life. It isn't home, true, but it harbours nothing but good memories to me. Unlike Australia. Unlike Sydney.

Those two boys looked at me like I was crazy when I first came out about hating my old life. To them, I was that privileged son of a successful cruise tycoon. Huge house in Vaucluse(4). Private school education without the stress of having to perform for the sake of your poor parents who footed the bill. But ask me, really, and I would tell you. I'd rather have an army soldier father and a laundry-owner mother, and go to selective public school(5) like Gale. Or, be born into a bakery-owning family and have this bittersweet responsibility to make your parents' hard work and sacrifices count, like Peeta. That way, I wouldn't have done many idiotic things I did as a spoiled teenager. And I wouldn't have to deal with...

Okay, Finnick, stop. Don't think about it. Just keep up with the knots.

Knot it. Unravel it. Knot it again. Unravel it again. Get into that soothing rhythm and forget everything. All, until there's nothing but peace.

By morning, I've had some minor blisters on my fingers, from the rope alone.

* * *

"Hey, Finboy! Come over here!"

With an internal grumble, I lock my screen and scoot over to Johanna's desk. There's almost no room for my elbows there, for it's literally full of monitors. With a little bit of squeezing, though - and with the help of Johanna's size or lack thereof - we manage to both fit behind Johanna's big screens. God. I have never realized, until now, how many graphs this girl has to keep an eye on constantly. Looks like she's an excellent multitasker.

"See that flat line over there?"

I look over at the graph she's pointing at. She's right. Something has flat-lined there. What it is exactly, I don't know. I haven't yet memorized what each graph stands for. Heck, I don't know if I will ever memorize them.

"Yep," I answer her, for clearly she's waiting for it.

"That's all you."

I turn to her and put on my best puppy dog face. She cackled at me - in that belittling, tsk-ing way which bruises egos and shatters prides - and ruffled my hair. The hair I spent five minutes alone restyling after the morning commute today.

Man, I am owned.

"Remember what I said about turning the monitoring back on?"

"... that you should double check that it's starting?" I answer, tentative and ashamed as the realization starts washing over me.

"Straight in the head, Finny. Now, turn it back on. Properly."

She nudges me out of her space just like that afterwards, getting back to whatever she was doing. That's my Team Lead. Concise, unfiltered, no bullshit allowed.

So I scoot back to my desk and unlock my screens, and get to turning on whatever that was I turned off this morning when fixing the problem. Looking at the gauge carefully this time, until every vital sign says it's up. Done. Back to learning what on earth happens every time someone makes a bad request to MockingMail's server, and what you can do to throttle the traffic(6) from the culprit.

I haven't even moved on from this page describing the preliminary steps, when another distraction arises in the form of Annie. Yes, _the _Annie. Annamaria Cresta. My long-gone buddy's baby sister. The girl I'd pined for when I was in year eleven, who is still the only all-rounder in my criteria of an ideal girl up to today.

Nice and kind. Grounded. Beautiful. Unattainable.

It has never been possible. Before _the thing_, I was seventeen and she was fourteen. I was way too old for her. After _the thing_... it just wasn't possible. And maybe isn't possible.

It's Johanna that she's coming for, not me. So I just sit tight on my desk and pretend to be doing whatever this thing is, while keeping my ears open to their conversation. I do want to know what they are talking about. Even if... if it has nothing to do with me.

"Hey, Crazy."

I know this sounds really wrong, but I feel this weird sting when I hear Johanna calling Annie 'Crazy'.

"Hey Mummy J."

... but this one is hilarious. I know Johanna and Annie - and that cousin of Gale's, Katniss - are close friends. Never have I pictured Johanna as the mother hen of the group, though. If she is the mother hen, then they would definitely be doomed. And downright dysfunctional.

I end up spinning my chair to face them, for I can't hold my peace anymore.

"You're a Mummy?" I ask my Team Lead, winking.

"Hell yeah," Johanna answers, a sly grin on her face. "A badass one. I make sure my kids have fun."

Annie chuckles at this, and puts on this dreamy, nostalgic face. She must've been thinking of those times Johanna made sure she had fun. It's kinda hard to imagine the sweet, straight-laced Annie having 'fun' as defined by common urban dictionary. But I guess people do change. Especially after twelve years and _that_.

Damn. Damn it. Why can't I think about Annie, without thinking about _that_?

"Let's ignore Finnyboy, Annie," Johanna says, rolling her eyes. "What sin do you have to confess this time?"

Man, I definitely have to adjust with the way Johanna speaks to others.

"I baked yesterday," Annie announces with a soft giggle. It's only then I notice she's holding a large-ish container in her hands. "This is your share."

"Awwww," Johanna coos. Whether it's serious, whether it's trolling, I don't really know. But, seriously, for a moment, she does look like a girl. "Thank you, Kid."

"No worries," Annie giggles out, beaming. "It's all yours. I've already given Katniss hers."

"Holy moly, Annie," Johanna chides playfully, lifting the container and tilting her head to see through the clear side. "You've really outdone yourself this time. Well done."

Annie beams again. Man, that smile. I find myself looking outside the window for a bit, just to get away from the thing.

What comes out next of her mouth, though, invokes the king of all emotions in me.

"Are you still coming with me to Rookwood(7) tomorrow?"

Tomorrow? What day is tomorrow?

... right. _His _birthday. Mark's birthday.

He would have been twenty nine, had he not died that year after our fallout.

I excuse myself to the bathroom that very moment, for this is definitely too much to handle.

* * *

It's embarrassing and wasteful, but I ended up spending my whole weekend moping and spacing out. And making and unravelling knots on my rope, while trying to push aside the regrets I have about my long-gone best friend Mark, our fallout, and how he was killed before I had a chance to reconcile with him.

Mags stayed with me the whole time. She knew Mark. She knows well what he meant to me. My boys Peeta and Gale stayed with me for several long hours each. I'd come out to them with my whole life story the fourth year of our friendship. Since then, they've been nothing short of supportive. They've also had things happening in their lives they later confessed to me and to each other. I suspect this is one of the glues which ties us together, as messed up as it sounds.

When Monday morning came, I was ready to face the world, again.

I'm sitting at my desk now, catching up on the emails sent to me during the weekend and checking some personal things before I start my day. At eight thirty AM, not many of my teammates are here already. Only those two guys on the other side of the block of cubicles who pretty much keep to themselves. And Johanna. She's not currently at her desk though. There was this quick "hello" as I walk over, but she has since disappeared. Perhaps to one of her daily coffee-catch-ups with Annie and their close friend, Gale's cousin Katniss.

Ah. There she comes back.

"Finnick."

I swivel around on my chair and face her. She looks serious. I wonder what kind of blooper I made without realizing it this time.

"Go and talk to Annie."

"What?"

I look at her. She looks back at me, straight and cold.

"She filled me in on you and her brother on the weekend," she answers, ruthless and straightforward. "You need to go talk to her. Both of you need closures."

I'm glad those two hermits on the other side of our area have their headphones on, for I don't know how I would explain this whole thing to them if they'd been interested.

* * *

Annie sits on the other side of the floor. The side facing the water, instead of the hustle-bustle of the city. Her work area is downright more visual and cheerful than mine. I guess because it's full of front-end(8) engineers.

"Hey Annie."

She swivels a bit and looks up at me.

"Hey..."

It's first tentative. But then, a smile breaks on her face.

"Finnick."

Next thing's really unpredictable. She gets up from her seat and hugs me like an old friend. Well, I guess we're old friends. So, as painful as it is, I hug her back.

"Coffee?" she asks me, confident and cheerful, as she quickly eyes her curious co-workers around us.

"Sure thing," I agree, knowing that it will be the best option for now. Even if my heart's beating like mad in my chest.

We make our way down the building on the lift, then out to one of nearby cafes. I get myself a long black and pay for Annie's latte despite her protests, for I'm a Mags-mentored proper gentleman. The sky's blue and the weather's nice, so we walk down to the water and settle on one of the benches in front of Cockle Bay Wharf(9). As I look at her, I can't help but wondering how much she has changed since I was last friends with her brother Mark. She's still shy and sweet and demure, but there's something else there right now. Confidence and wisdom.

"How's life?" she barges in.

That catches me by surprise, for I wasn't expecting her to confront this heads-on.

"Well... it's good, I guess," I answer, flashing a wide smile to hide the uneasiness I feel. "Getting used to here again, getting adjusted to work, but everything is cool. How's life for you?"

She takes a deep breath and looks up dreamily at the sky.

"Wonderful," she finally responds, beaming one of those sweet smiles at me. "Been feeling great for several years now. Life's really good."

I wonder for a second if it's a man who's made it wonderful, but I can't bear myself to ask. Not when I'm kind of... obsessed with her. Not with this exact person in front of me, but the person she was when we were teenagers.

"How's Jo treating you?"

Now, this makes me laugh. Even Johanna's good friend realizes what a piece of work she could be when she wants to.

"Pretty well, I guess," I answer, once the laughter stops. "Giving me ridiculous nicknames, making habit of ruffling my hair, scolding me in front of everyone else if I make mistakes. But she's great."

"Sounds like her," Annie comments, chuckling. "I remember being overwhelmed those first few months in year eleven, but after that, I just got used to it."

"Oh, so you two are high school friends?" I ask, feeling a bit dumb for asking but there's nothing else I can think about right now.

"Three of us," Annie corrected, smiling so widely it lights up her face. "Jo, and Kat, and me. Never apart since year eleven."

Year eleven. That should've been ten years ago. These girls have been together longer than I've known my boys.

And that's the year right after Mark died.

Mark, Mark, Mark. Marco Cresta. Even after everything, his ghost has never left me.

And I can't run away anymore.

"Annie," I finally say, pushing all my thoughts aside just so that this momentary bravado doesn't go away. "I... I'm really sorry about what happened to Mark."

I want to say I was devastated. I want to say I regret everything, until now. But it just doesn't come out. I don't feel I have the right to, I guess.

"Don't," Annie responds with her demure smile. Man, that smile somehow breaks my heart now. "Not your fault. We were just there at the wrong time, and Mark was just being himself."

That really puts me to shame. Seriously. This girl was there when some gas-station robbers stabbed her brother for trying to intervene. And here she is, talking about how everything is just an unfortunate coincidence.

I wasn't even there, and I couldn't even think about it until just now, until she told me not to be sorry.

"He'd wanted to say sorry to you, though," Annie continues, just to drag the proverbial blade further through my soul. "He... he just wanted to help. He'd never guessed _it_ would ruin everything."

Of course, she's referring to my fallout with Mark, the year before the stabbing incident. The one in which he was just trying to save me from that evil woman who was my Dad's girlfriend. The one in which he'd called the police on her and made a huge case out of it. Which ended with the woman going to jail, my Dad having a stroke attack from the stress, and an ashamed younger version of me shunning my best friend and hero off.

"I... I've long forgiven him," I finally say, for I know Annie deserves no less. "I've actually planned a visit home to talk it through with him, but I never got the chance."

Annie puts down her cup. And does yet another unthinkable thing. She hugs me again.

Lord, I will never deserve this girl.

* * *

**Glossary**

1 General Practitioner

2 Infrastructure engineers and some software engineers do this thing called 'oncall shifts'. When you're oncall, you carry a pager and might be paged at any time regarding a breakage or unusual thing in the system you are responsible for. Infrastructure engineers usually have a shorter reaction window, for their problems are usually more urgent. They also get paged more often than the software engineers.

3 Primary School: elementary school. In New South Wales, the state Sydney is in, it includes years (grades) 1 to 6. After that, you go to high school for another 6 years, with the last two years being optional. You need to complete years 11 and 12, though, if you want to go to the University (college).

4 A posh suburb in the Eastern part of Sydney, right on the ocean. It's laced with big houses, and some of Sydney's richest live there.

5 A special type of public school. Unlike normal ones, when you are assigned a school based on where you live, you need to pass tests to get in here. It's more competitive all throughout.

6 In the art of keeping a web server up and running, there is this technique called 'throttling the traffic', which is basically limiting some particular users to a certain number of requests (page refreshes or access) for a certain period of time. Done because bad requests are sometimes hacking attempts, and you don't want that to take your website down.

7 Rookwood Necropolis is a big cemetery complex in Sydney metropolitan area. It's about twenty minutes drive to the West out of Sydney city.

8 In web development, there is 'front-end' and 'back-end'. 'back-end' deals with how things are connected, and what should be done upon users' requests. 'front-end' deals with the appearance of the website, everything that the users interact with. The 'front-end' guys are the ones who make the website pretty.

9 A waterfront restaurant and club precinct in Darling Harbour.

* * *

See you within the next seven days guys! Thanks for reading and making it here.

This story is a work in progress, so suggestions and constructive criticism are very much welcomed. Feel free to ask me questions too, I'll try to answer them as best as I can.

Wish you all a stellar weekend and a stellar week!


	4. Chapter 4

**AN:** Hello all! Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the reviews (to bmdrwho12, De-BardatBoston, Mockingjay7475, Axes Tridents and Snares, and Fluffy the chicken), follows, and favourites. This chapter will be a bit short-ish, but next ones will be rolled out (cue use of software engineering term here) within a few days so stay tuned.

**Disclaimer: **All are Suzanne Collins'. Just borrowing here (and bastardising, I realised. Oh well.)

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**Annie**

Tuesday morning. Another day, another chance to make good things happen.

Standing here on my bus stop, I take a deep breath and revisit the last few days in my brain.

_Mark's birthday this year was pretty much like each of those ones we've celebrated after his death._

_A drive down to the place where he was last alive: that gas station near our old place, with Mum and Dad and my other two brothers. Another drive to Rookwood, with a detour to Jo and Kat's place in Pyrmont to pick them up. Buying flowers, going to where Mark is, and saying prayers. A drop-off at Strathfield(_1)_ station, so that Jo and Kat and I could go to Harris Park(_2)_ for some crazily spicy Indian food. This messed up ritual of trying to get our stomachs burning hot started up as one of Jo's outlandish ideas. She had this theory that we would delve less in memories if we had a physical distraction which kept us from it. Well, it only worked before we started Uni, for all those spicy UNSW and Kingsford food(_3)_ made us immune to spicy food from then on. We maintain our post-Rookwood-Indian-food-ritual, though, just for the sake of it. And because the food is really good, as different as it is from what all of us had growing up._

_A huge meal, a train ride, and fifteen minutes of walk later, we were back in Pyrmont, at Jo and Kat's place. A sleepover here was yet another part of Mark's Birthday ritual for me, ever since they both moved in. Previously, we'd alternated between Jo's Uncle Blight's Penthouse in the city and Kat's Aunt Effie's terrace in Surry Hills(_4)_. So, all in all, it's always sleepover. The first few years were bad with my nightmares and screaming and breakdown. But my friends, being my stubborn, loyal friends, stayed with me. And repeated the same ritual. Again and again, until years passed, issues were dealt with, and nowadays there's nothing but a little bit of pain on that particular day._

_Saturday night was spent playing Mario Kart(_5)_ on Kat's Wii and watching Tron: Legacy for the fourth time (Jo's seventh, Kat's 12th, but my fourth, anyway). We woke up just before midday on Sunday and stalked our way to XXII(_6)_ for a brunch. Then it was a shopping session at the city, before a bus back home for me and walk back home for them._

_Overall, it was a really good weekend. Well, there was a bit of chaos ensued when I told Jo and Kat that Finnick's that best friend of Mark's, but it quickly died down._

_Monday, though, brought a bit of surprise. Finnick came over and talked to me. We had coffee and talked about Mark for a bit. Whatever made him do so, I don't know. I have a feeling it's all Jo, though. Of the three of us girls, she's the one most uncomfortable with leaving problems hanging. _

_I haven't confronted her about it, though, because I'm actually glad to be reacquainted with Finnick. We got along well as kids, and up until his fallout with Mark, I considered him my friend too._

The sight of my bus approaching snaps me out of my thoughts. Giddy and excited for the new day, I climb in and dip my weekly pass into the reader. My usual seat is, as usual empty. I make my way through it, careful as the bus has started moving again, and plop down. Music time, until we get to Hyde Park.

I reach for my phone, plug in the earphones, and put on my Tuesday morning playlist.

* * *

The first sight I see upon arriving in the office is that friend of Finnick's, Peeta, trying to juggle his postman bag, a big box of something, and four cups of coffee in a holder.

"Let me take the box," I offer him, for he is seriously struggling.

"Thanks," he says gratefully, as I take the box from his hands. Looks like there's some cakes of some sort inside there, judging the nice, sugary smell.

"Your birthday?" I ask him, smiling.

"Nope," he answers, smiling back. "I wish it was, though. I like birthdays. These are all for the morning meeting with New York."

Ah, so that explains on how he's in early today. I've never seen him - or any of his two buddies, in that matter - here in the office before eight. Thanks to time difference, meetings with the New York office are sometimes on way before office hour.

I follow him around to his desk. He sits two rows away from Kat, with the MockingVid team. Kat's already there when we get there. Staring at her screen, typing furiously on her keyboard, not even bother looking up.

"Morning Katniss."

No response, except for a mumbled 'morning'. Kat has totally cold-shouldered Peeta.

"Oh, well," he mutters, smiling to himself. "Busy, as usual."

"Yeah," I agree, although he's actually wrong. Kat doesn't make a habit of ignoring people, even when she's busy. She just, well, a little bit uncomfortable around this particular guy. She's told me and Jo herself that she's a bit wary of Peeta's friendliness and kindness. Kat has a lingering trust issue, stemming from her mother's abandonment. I remember her at the start of year eleven. Quiet, scowling, sitting alone at the back of the class. Avoiding others like plague. It was only after the three of us bumped into each other in our Psychiatrist's waiting room that she started opening up to Jo and I, little by little. Took us a lot to get here, really. And until today, Kat's still the quiet, skeptical one in our group.

"I'd better go to my meeting," Peeta says a second later, after a quick look on his phone. "Have a good day."

He disappears into one of the nearby meeting rooms shortly afterwards. With a sigh, I walk over to Kat, who's secretly been observing the whole thing from the corner of her eyes.

"That's not necessary, Kat," I gently tell her off, plopping on the empty chair next to hers. "He's just trying to be nice."

"I know," Kat grumbles out. "And I'm not saying he can't be nice. It's just, like, don't expect me to be nice to everyone."

"Ssh," I chide her. "You need to let that go a bit, Kat. Not everyone's your mother. Jo and I won't leave you that way. Many others won't."

She looks up at me and gives me this half-scowl, half-grin which makes me laugh a bit.

"You should've been dr. Aurelius's assistant, Annie," she tells me, quietly swivelling to face me. "Sounds like something he'd say."

"I like it better here," I respond, smiling back at her. "Making things people use. Making people happy. Not like... that."

In all honesty, I'd rather design and code up a pretty, useful web page, than sit all day trying to tell people their lives would be OK again. Some days, I'm still even struggling to remind myself to be positive.

Kat grins at me now. She stands up and grabs her cat mug. It's a little joke thing Jo and I bought her when she got promoted from Software Engineer to Senior Software Engineer. Our reasoning was that people don't have to try remembering her name, they should be able to look at her mug to tell who she is.

"Coffee?"

"Sounds good," I respond to her, getting up to follow her to the kitchen.

Jo's scrutinising one of her screens muttering lots of profanity when we come by her desk, so it's only the two of us this morning. Jo being like that means something is going really really wrong with the production systems, and she needs to fix it immediately.

"Who's gonna be in trouble today?" I ask Kat once we're far enough, knowing that she had a better view and understanding of Jo's screens than I did.

"MockingNet, I think," Kat answers, referring to our social networking website. "They look flooded(7)."

"I see," I reply, as I slide behind the coffee machine. It's an unspoken rule between us three that coffee-making duty is mine since I helped at my parents' cafe throughout Uni.

Some time passes in silence, as I make the coffee and Katniss watches quietly behind me. Just like any other day of the week.

"Don't you think this is all a bit funny?" she finally asks, as I finish up her cap(8) with a dash of cocoa powder.

"A little," I admit. I turn around and hand her the cat mug. "Finnick and your cousin know each other. And they both know that boy who gave you some bread when you were sixteen. Now they all work here. The world's truly small."

She takes an appreciative sip and says, "yeah. And you seem to be really nice to _all _of them, whilst Jo kind of hates one of them and I'm kind of wary of the other two."

"Catnip."

Oh, no. Speak about the devil, and it will appear.

"Hey Gale," Kat responds, looking sideways sheepishly. "You're early today."

"Stayed in the city last night," Gale responds. He grab a latte cup from the stack next to the machine and starts making himself some. Straight away, I know he had too been a barista at some point. He can make a coffee.

"Tell me you're around next time," Kat says to him. She's pretty comfortable around him, I must say. I think it's because they'd grown up together as kids in Adelaide, until he got that scholarship to the States and she moved here. "We can have dinner or go to a chocolate place."

For a bit, he looks amused. He's quick to put a straight face back on, though, and turn to face us.

"Not when your girlfriend hates me, cousin," he tells her, a small smirk on his face. "I don't want you to get into trouble with Axe."

Now, 'axe' is Johanna's corporate username(9). It's no secret that he dislikes Jo as much as she dislikes him. Since that incident in the first day when Jo told him to "scoot over to sales" if he wanted to work among females, he'd been making these veiled remarks about her. They're kind of subtle it won't get him sacked based on discrimination, but obvious enough for those who know the story.

"Gale," Kat warns him, crossing her free arm on her chest. "Jo's one of my best friends. Not my girlfriend. And you don't know her whole story, so just stop it."

"What's her story then?" he challenges her, leaning casually against the counter. I take a deep breath to calm myself, as the urge to step in and defend my friends rises. I don't like raising my voice at people.

"Not mine to tell, Gale," Kat says, looking at him. "The bottomline's that I care about you both, so you should stop egging on Jo."

"Tell her to stop egging on me then," he says, shifting out of the kitchen and into the work area.

Kat sighs and slumps, before turning back to me and starting to ask about my work, just to change the topic.

* * *

Now that I've thought about it, it seems like an entirely foolish idea, but I did have this hope that Finnick and I would be as close as we were before his fallout with my brother.

The rest of Tuesday passes without any encounter with him. We see each other on Wednesday, when I stop by Jo's desk to pick her up for lunch, but it never goes further than hellos and how are yous. On Thursday, we bump into each other in the lift on the way out, but we are both too busy being referees to Jo and Gale's sarcasm match that we don't really talk. Come Friday, and there's this slight improvement in that he stops by my desk on his way back from a meeting, but it's again the standard hello-how-are-you conversation. We're practically acquaintances now. Which is logical, when you think about it, for the last time I really knew him was twelve years ago.

I feel a bit sad about it, but not too much. His life is his. Mine is mine. They're no longer as intertwined as they were twelve years ago. Finnick has the boys. I have my girls. Our lives are different.

So I just go on with my life, and do things I usually do.

My parents are off to the Blue Mountains(10) for the weekend. This means a sleepover at the girls'; we all know I can't be alone in the house. Thus, on Friday afternoon, I find myself crossing the Pyrmont Bridge alongside Jo and Kat to their place, listening to their rants about Gale Hawthorne and Peeta Mellark respectively. Apparently Peeta's niceness has extended to shouting the entire team ice cream _just because_, and Gale has taken his war with Jo into a thread about room temperature at the Sydney Office mailing list.

"Hey Kid," Jo calls me, just as she finished her Gale rant. "How come you don't have Finnick rants to share?"

"I sort of do," I confess, out of solidarity. "I expect him to be my friend again after Monday, but he seems to only want to be an acquaintance."

"Lame," Jo chides. "That's not a rant. How come you don't have anything about him that irks you?"

"Because that's not needed," I answer honestly, as I look at Kat from the corner of my eyes. There's this guilty look I can't miss in her eyes; she must've realised how ridiculous her wariness of Peeta Mellark is.

* * *

And the weekend rolls in, as normally as it usually is. Until around dinnertime on Saturday, when I bump into someone while going back up to Jo and Kat's level alone after volunteering to grab our orders from the delivery man.

"Annie! You live here?'

At first, it startles me that he is here. But then it dawns on me that Peeta can choose to be wherever he wants in Sydney, including here.

"Not me," I answer him, smiling. "I'm just sleeping over this weekend. Do you?"

"I see," he responds with his usual smile. "I've just moved in here with the guys today. We decided to give Finn's Grandma Mags her peace back. It's kind of unfair to expect her to handle three hungry, grumpy boys every evening."

I chuckle. Mags picked Finnick up from my house a lot of times when I was little, thus I sort of remember her. But then, something else kicks in. Fear.

Peeta and Gale and Finnick. Moving to the same building Jo and Kat lives in.

Something tells me disasters are bound to happen.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 Strathfield is one of the major suburbs in the West of Sydney city. It has a major train station hub to several train lines, and thus is popular with families and city workers alike.

2 A smaller suburb with large Indian ethnic population and lots of authentic, good Indian restaurants.

3 UNSW = University of New South Wales, one of the major universities in Sydney. It's famous for its engineering department (computer science included) and the fact that it has the largest number of international students. Kingsford is the suburb next to it, which has lots of Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian, and Thai restaurants and takeaways. There are some restaurants famous for delicious and spicy food, as well as being budget-friendly for students.

4 A trendy suburb right in the east of Sydney city. It's considered hip and chic to live there, and it has lots of good restaurants and bars and bakeries.

5 Mario Kart is a famous racing game in which all the characters from Super Mario Bros race each other in karts and bikes. It's fun and very child-friendly with the colourful graphics and funny visual effects.

6 A real cafe in Pyrmont, Sydney, Australia.

7 flooded - having too many requests to handle (for the amount of servers available).

8 cappucino

9 A bit like your online alias throughout the corporate system. It's like in any other company, really, except that in some tech company you have liberty of choosing whatever name you want (doesn't have to be your initials, firstname lastname, or even anything close to your name). For example, Johanna will log in as 'axe' on her computer here, and people will email her at axe . Note that the email address is fictive and should not be tried, though.

10 The Blue Mountains, or just "the mountains", is a mountainous area about one and a half hours of drive to the West from Sydney city. It's a nice place for a weekend getaway, with hotels and resorts and villas you can rent.

* * *

Thanks for reading and stay gold everyone! :)


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: **Hello! Thanks for reading. Thanks so much for following and favouriting too, and special thanks to my reviewers De-BardatBoston, secretTHGLuver, and axes tridents and snares. Your support means so much to me :).

This chapter focuses on Gale, his friendship with his Mates Peeta and Finnick (and his real thoughts about them), and his war with his new work nemesis Johanna. Gale is Katniss's cousin here - for _real_ -, so there will be no romantic involvement/confusion/anything between the two. Gale and Johanna, though... well, it's coming, _somehow_. Hope you guys enjoy it :).

**Disclaimer:** The great work and characters I'm borrowing (bastardising) here are Suzanne Collins' :).

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**Gale**

This goddamned furniture store can't be even more annoying. Really.

Dubious ways of organizing their stores. Badly designed trolleys which allow things to slide. Cashier working so slowly and without any level of customer service. Delivery people not being able to give an exact time of arrival.

And a day and a haphazard delivery later, some _missing _parts.

Looks like we're going to have to put our TV on the floor for a week or so, until they send us some screws in the mail.

"That's not too bad, really," Peeta reasons, looking as happy as he usually is with what we have. "At least it's not one of the beds or the dining table."

Well, he's right. But as a paying customer, I do want that bloody store to do things right.

"Here," Finnick says, pushing a can of drink each into our hands. "To the new House of Chaos!"

"To the new House of Chaos."

'House of Chaos' was what we used to call our former place in the States. It lived up to its name, thanks to Finnick who's never picked up after himself and Peeta who has this knack of leaving things laying around on the kitchen counter. So much for initially wishing it was just a moniker.

I haven't told those sucker mates of mine, but I've signed up this place for weekly cleaning with a company. I don't want to do my head in trying to finish up Peeta's careless attempt in cleaning while attending to all those mess Finnick makes. Man. I felt really sorry for Mags the whole time we crashed her place. There were always traces of flour and sugar in her kitchen, and shirts and jeans strewn all over the house - on the furniture, on the floor, everywhere you can imagine. That feeling that we'd abused Mags' kindness was one of the reasons for me to kick off that search for our new bachelors' abode. The other one was... well, _that_. Finnick's always said Mags wouldn't mind, but I don't personally feel comfortable with the idea of bringing home girls to _my best mate grandma's _place. Not that I do that every week anyway, but would be nice to be able to do it when I find one I like enough.

"Know what?" Peeta says, out of the blue, as we sit around finishing our drinks. "I bumped into Annie Cresta in the lift yesterday."

That send Finnick into a drink-spewing spell. All over himself and the carpet.

"She lives here?" he asks frantically, as if he's going to be in serious danger if she'd lived here.

"Nope," Peeta answers, chuckling a bit at our friend's antics. "She said she was sleeping over."

"Thank God," Finnick mutters, cradling his head in his hands. I roll my eyes at his utter exaggeration. Annie Cresta living in the same building with us couldn't be that bad, really. At least she wasn't that crazy feminist friend of hers, Johanna Mason. Or my cousin Catnip, who'd grown up from that fun-loving girl I knew into this antisocial workaholic during the eleven years we lived apart.

"Do you know whose place she'd crashed?" I ask Peeta, just to rile Finnick up a bit. It's no secret that Finnick is in a big denial about liking Annie, when it isn't at all far from the truth.

"I didn't ask," Peeta answers, shrugging. "I didn't want to be too nosy and scare her. She's a really nice person."

Finnick chugs down his drink. I can see how nervous he is about the prospect of seeing Annie again in the building.

Time to rile him up again, I guess.

"Yeah," I say, looking at Peeta though this is more directed at Finnick than at him. "I would choose her any day over that friend of hers Johanna. I'd say I'd choose her over Catnip, too, but she's my cousin and it might come out a bit wrong."

And then, just then, I realise something. Annie visiting for a sleepover. It could as well be that... _damn_.

"Peet," I ask my friend, "do you know which floor Annie's friend-or-whatever lives in?"

He looks at us sheepishly at this.

"Her friend-or-whatever lives across the hall from us," he explains, a rather glum smile on his face. "Looks like we might see plenty of her."

And then, just as he finishes up his sentence, some rather familiar voices echo from the corridor outside.

"Is that...?"

I put my finger on my lips, just to tell Finnick to quiet down.

"_... swaggering through the office like he owns it. Seriously. Didn't his interviewers see anything wrong with him?"_

That voice. I _bloody_ know that voice. If my ears are correct, this dream unit can potentially be a nightmare.

Damn. I need to know, now.

I get up and stalk my way to our door. There's this little peephole in it, which gives you the view of who's standing on your door - and of part of the corridor in front of your unit. Taking a deep breath, I take a look through the hole.

... and jump straight back off, as I confirm my fear.

I wish we had double-checked, before signing that twelve-months lease on this place.

* * *

Monday morning sees me stalking out of the apartment at six-thirty, just to reduce my chance of bumping into Catnip or her _super-friendly_ housemate on my way to the office.

Well, it doesn't work. Well, nearly doesn't work. I end up having to take a long detour through the side streets of Pyrmont, as I catch a glimpse of them in their running gears heading straight to where I'm walking. Thank my luck they're too busy chatting with each other to actually see me making that sudden turn to this small street I haven't even been to before.

Even with that, and an order of extra-large long black from the downstairs cafe at work, I still manage to get to my desk by seven. Aside of those few people who has kids they have to pick up from school at three-thirty today, no one is here. So I use this opportunity to start designing my first big feature for MockingNet. I figure out its time for me to do something new for the team, after three weeks of just fixing stupid bugs others make.

"Morning, Gale!" Thom, my ever-cheerful Team Lead, greets me as he plops down at his desk. "You're early today."

A quick look at my computer's clock indicates that it's now seven forty-five. I guess after three weeks of mostly arriving at eight or later, people has assumed that eight is my general arrival time.

"Yeah," I answer, finally deciding to just spill the beans. "I've just moved closer to work on the weekend."

"Nice," Thom comments. "We used to live close by, too, until we got pregnant and Delly wanted to move somewhere more child-friendly."

Thom, who is around Finnick's age, is married to this woman called Delly, who's apparently a childhood friend of Peeta's. They now have this year-old baby, whose photos are stuck all over the frame of Thom's thirty-inch monitor.

Now, that's one damn lucky kid. Thom's perhaps one of the greatest fathers I know, as far as I could tell. I saw him playing with his kid at the Darling Harbour playground(1) after work last week, when I stalked over down there to grab some chips(2) from Maccas(3) for the train journey. He kind of reminded me of my father, before Dad was sent over to the war and came back completely screwed up in the head.

Anyway. Back to designing this new photo-sharing thing for MockingNet. The absolute next big thing.

* * *

By the end of the work week, my feature is fully implemented. And I've been successful in avoiding getting busted by Catnip and Miss Mason on the streets or in our building for the entirety of it. And the screws for our TV cabinet has finally arrived in the mail, so that our TV is no longer on the floor now.

Should have been great, if only the guys in New York had approved those changes I made to the code(4). As five o'clock rolls in on Friday afternoon, the thing is still pending approval. Even after I addressed all the bloody comments they made to it.

"Gaaaleee," Finnick whines from the edge of my row. He's been standing there since four forty-five, eager to drag me out of here and into the Friday night life of Sydney city.

"Alright, alright!" I snap at him. Locking my screen, I grab my backpack and walk grumpily to him. He looks somewhat victorious that he's finally managed to tear me away from work. Fine, Finnick. Have what you want.

Peeta's been waiting for us in the reception when we get there. Talking to the receptionist Lavinia, with an empty cake carrier in his hands. Looks like his latest cake was too a hit with his team.

"Ah, here they are," he says, upon seeing us approaching. "Have a good weekend, Lavinia!"

"Have a good weekend!" the receptionist replies cheerfully, waving her left hand which has her wedding and engagement rings. Peeta told us, last week, that she's married to Darius, the tech support(5) guy. I bet their kids will all be redheads like them.

"Where to?" I ask my mates, once we are all back on the busy streets of Friday afternoon.

"There's this boutique beer place(6) people in my team swears by," Finnick answers, giddy and excited. "Apparently it's pretty ladies-friendly."

"But you're not a lady, Finn," Peeta jokes, smiling slightly. I know that deep down he doesn't actually agree with Finnick's habit of hanging around ladies just to try chatting them up. Well, I do admit that Finnick's sometimes a little bit out of hand in this matter. I guess Peeta has the very right to be wary.

"But I'm the ladies' friend," Finnick rebukes with his slurry, purring voice. From the corner of my eyes, I see Peeta's secret sigh. I have to try hard to restrain my laughter, for this whole situation is actually hilarious. Saint Peeta, best friend of Sex God Finnick Odair. Sometimes I wonder how on earth the three of us ever clicked at the first place.

We let Finnick win this time, and actually head to the boutique beer place. It's jam-packed with people, including some guys from work I've never really talked to. We get our drinks and scoot over to a corner on the bar, on Finnick's insistence of course. It's his favourite place for trying to chat ladies up.

And sure it works. For him, at least. Within fifteen minutes, he's disappeared into another corner of this place to have a more private talk with an attractive lady in general office-worker attire. Picking up at bars isn't mine and Peeta's styles, so we busy ourselves with our beers and random jokes we heard flying around. I swear my mate can chat anyone head's off, but right now I'm grateful for it, for the last thing I want is to be picked up by a random girl I don't know anything about in a random bar. Let's just say I'm more of the 'friend-of-a-friend' type of guy.

We're in the middle of discussing the mess which is current Australian politics, when a familiar, cringe-worthy voice rings in my ear.

"HELLO! BEEN WAITING FOR FIVE MINUTES HERE!"

I look over my shoulder, just to confirm. And surely, it's her. The axe. Johanna Mason. Standing in front of the bar, waving a fifty-dollar note in one hand with the other one on her hips. Seriously. That woman has no patience.

"Gale," Peeta says quietly next to me. "Annie's waving for us to come over. She's sitting with Katniss at a table somewhere behind you. Do you want to join them?"

"Not when their pathetic excuse of a best friend is with them," I tell my friend.

I'm not sure whether the axe hears it or not, but I know her burning gaze follows me around from then on, until we leave the place around an hour later.

* * *

The rest of Friday night was a blur, when I think about it nearly two days later.

_From the beer place, we all went to a club. What it was called, where it was, I didn't quite remember. I was too distracted the whole time, thinking about work and trying to brush off the occasional lady who tried to pick me up. Oh, and drinking to spend time. A bit too much, maybe, for I didn't remember how we all got home, and was only back on earth when the smell of pancakes cooking in the kitchen invaded my room._

_Saturday was pretty much gone in a bad hangover - and in helping Peeta finding Finnick, who was pulling off one of his missing acts again. Eventually, we did get through to him, in the middle of his brunch-or-whatever with his squeeze of the night. Knowing Finnick, it would most probably never go anywhere, but nevertheless, he looked happy when he got home. Oh, well. I guess that would do._

_Sunday morning, I woke up and checked my work mail just in case. Nothing happened, except that the New York guys approved my changes. Yesssss. Big win._

_I tried pushing it aside and enjoying my Sunday, before succumbing to the temptation to submit the code as I lied down for a nap at around three PM._

And so here I am now, at work. At five PM on a Sunday. Alone by myself, submitting my changes. Feeling like a dork for being such a workaholic, yet accomplished for I can finally submit it.

Aaand, enter. Submission process begins.

I spend the next five minutes or so staring outside the window, at the afternoon skyline of Sydney. And remembering the skyline I used to see back home in Adelaide, when I was just a boy. Somehow this one's more fake, more unhappy than that other one. Such a contrary, considering how much happier I am now compared to how I was then.

... or maybe not. Maybe I've just been equally unhappy all along. Only, I know how to deal with it now.

The submission process is still going. Deciding that I've had enough of the skyline, I pulled out my smartphone and started checking on my texts. Nothing interesting, except those few ones from my little brothers and baby sister. Rory, who's twenty two and is finishing up his undergraduate degree in medicine(7). Vick, who's twenty and is studying to be a teacher. And my little love Posy. Fourteen years old and in high school. The absolute best of all of us kids, full of life and spunky. The only one unaffected by Dad and his depression flunk, for she was way too little to remember his crazy ways when he was this half-insane person living in our house.

The only one who wasn't in the car, when Dad lost control of himself while driving and nearly drowned all of us boys in River Torrens(8).

Way to go, really. If only he hadn't been that stubborn and refused to get himself checked by the shrink. Hell. The end result would have been the same anyway for him. Mental health facility. The only difference was that unnecessary stress he caused us kids.

Here it goes. My change goes in.

I lock my screen and stand up, for suddenly I miss the noise and hustle-bustle of other people.

* * *

Monday morning greets me with a rude awakening by constant text messages from an unknown number. Great. I've put my phone on silent, and this still happens.

I grab the thing and sit up on my bed to read the messages. They all say the same thing, over and over again.

'Please get online immediately.'

'Please get online immediately.'

'Please get online immediately.'

I scan through my text messages folder, just to figure out how many of those I have. Forty two messages, in the space of seven minutes or so. One message every ten second. Whoever sent these things must have either been desperate or an automated robot. Most likely the latter, judging the consistency of the messages and the intervals.

Looks like I'm some kind of work trouble. _Fuck_.

The work-issued laptop has so far proven itself to be nothing but a nuisance, so I've stopped taking it home with me. The only way for me to get online now is to go in. At five thirty in the morning. Way to go, really.

I curse myself and the system and whatever stupid thing is happening, as I pull my jeans and T-shirt on and make a dash out of the door.

And thus it brings me to a six AM start in the office, through a frantic run through the empty streets and that agonising lift journey. Scouring through my full inbox, trying to figure out what on earth happened and what I need to do. Such a crappy start of the day, I must say. I can almost guarantee that the rest of the day will just suck as badly, judging the trend.

The stupid texts have stopped. Looks like whatever person or thing sending them has finally given up on me. A good thing, for the distraction is the last thing I need at the moment. I need to fix this thing, not to stare at my phone every ten seconds.

The emails and their patterns indicate that the mayhem started around midnight. What seems to be happening, looking at the messages and the logs and the traffic graph, is that something is taking way too long and giving the users constant timeout. Especially when there are too many of them using MockingNet at a time. Hence the spike at midnight - which was basically daytime in the States and afternoon in Europe. Those two areas are where we have the most number of users, according to the stats I've been secretly monitoring.

And suddenly I know why it was me, out of all people, that they paged.

I was the one responsible for this mess.

I forgot to check whether the system would be able to cope with the load. I didn't... damn. I didn't really think about all those extra time it needed to serve up that new photo-sharing thing.

Okay, okay, Gale. Relax. Fix it. You're not helping anything with your panicking.

I trawl through the myriad of files in the company's code database for the configuration file(9) for MockingNet service, and check the thing out(10). And got a warning straight away - _sweet as_. The great and powerful Miss Johanna 'Axe' Mason has also checked it out. Around five or so minutes ago, judging the timestamp.

I massage my temple lightly, for suddenly I have a headache. A potential merge conflict(11) with The Axe. Will be quite a miracle if it doesn't transform into a full-blown, real-life conflict. The Axe simply hates me, and I can assure the feeling is mutual.

Hell. Why does it have to be so hard?

_ping._

Damn. Who's this moron pinging me at six in the morning? On a Monday? Which is essentially the Europe and States folks' Sunday?

_ping. ping. ping. ping._

I bring my browser back into focus, just to see who's busy sending me messages on chat. And groan, straight away, as I saw "Johanna Mason" flashing in red at the top of that chatbox.

'_You were too late. I'm on it already. Just go back home and sleep. Congratulations for breaking the system._'

Great. The Great Johanna Mason is pissed off now. Lucky she is home and not here, for I don't think I'm in the mood to see that face of hers this morning. Not after I... damn. How could I overlook such important thing?

Whatever is in the chatbox is no longer important to me. I lock my screen and get up, desperately in need for a walk and a coffee. Such a morning, this is. A little bit of relaxation would do.

Yet, turns out that I can't relax after all. I'm not even out in the reception yet when someone suddenly grabs my arm.

"Well done, Soldier."

I look over my shoulder, at the whole five-feet-and-some-small-inches of Miss Johanna "Axe" Mason.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 The darling harbour playground is fairly new. It's full of fun things for kids (swings, things to climb on, slides, water-features and things like that), and is always packed on weekends. Tend to be better on weekdays, though.

2 Chips in Australia means two things: french fries and those potato chips you get in a packet from the supermarket. In this context, it's french fries.

3 Maccas = McDonalds.

4 In Tech company, there's a process called 'code review'. Basically, another programmer will look at your code to see if it looks alright and acceptable enough to be part of the company code base. Once you pass the review, you can submit your code to the company code base and get it integrated to the existing stuff.

5 'Tech support' in a Tech company is basically like any other tech supports in other companies. They are the ones you go to when your computer breaks, or when the network's not working, or when you can't log in to your account on your computer. It's a common misconception that software engineers fix their computer problems themselves - most of the times they don't. The company will want them to be productive and write software, and to achieve so, will be employing some specialised tech support guys who can fix computer issues faster than the software engineers can.

6 There is really a boutique beer place in Sydney CBD. I won't spell out the name here for I'm not actually a huge fan of drinking, but I'm sure a search on any search engine will reveal it.

7 In some universities in Australia, you can go straight to studying medicine from high school. It generally takes five to six years to complete an undergraduate medical degree - plus two years or so of residency afterwards, before you can practice as a GP or continue on and become a specialist.

8 A real river in South Australia. Runs through Adelaide CBD.

9 A configuration file for a web service usually contains things such as how many server programs should be spun up for the service per server machine, whether or not you should limit the traffic, how many seconds should the machine wait before the program timed out, and things like that. When your service gets flooded with requests, the configuration file would be the first thing you look at and modify.

10 In tech company, you do this process called 'checking out' before you edit the code. Basically what it does is create a copy of the code in your local directory, so that you work on your local copy instead of on the real thing in the company codebase - just in case you break it or things like that. Once you verify your thing works, a program will help you merging it with the version in the company codebase.

11 Sometimes, the edits you make will clash with the edits someone else makes. This will result in what is called a 'merge conflict' when you try to merge your code back into the main codebase. Resolving this conflict will sometimes take a long time, and programmers would rather not have it at all.

* * *

Thanks for reading guys. I have 6 and 7 written and am writing 8 (slowly, slowly... I don't really know where my motivation went, but it's only going really slowly now). 6 is the continuation of this, 7 is Everlark, and 8 is... in progress. I understand that my readers have a very varied preferences when it comes to the couples (most of you probably are coming for Everlark, some others for Odesta, and some others for Johale), so I'll always tell you who's in the spotlight for the next chapter (and repeat it at the start of each chapter).

I'll roll 6 out (bah, 'roll out', a very Software Engineering term indeed) within the next 7 days. Till then, stay gold! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**AN:** "What? Twelve hours later?"

Yes, everyone. I decide to put this out now, instead of later. Figured out that I'll be more motivated to keep writing if I don't have the safety net of those stacked-up chapters in my Doc Manager in ff net. LOL.

Thanks to all of you who's been reading so far. Thanks to all the followers and favouriters too. And special thanks to my reviewers De-BardatBoston and Everllarkglee4ever. You all made my day (secret of the day: my guilty pleasure when at work is checking my traffic stats counter every now and then) :).

Enjoy!

Chapter warning: implication of abuse/violation in a character's past.

**Disclaimer:** all are Suzanne Collins'. I'm just borrowing (+ bastardising I think).

* * *

**Chapter Six**

**Johanna**

Mysterious pages early on Monday morning.

Such a nice way to start your week, I must say. And yes, that's sarcastic. I'm never not sarcastic, right?

It would've taken me much longer to spin everything up on my laptop than it would be for me to jog that distance between my place and the damned office. Thus jogging it was to me, in the gear I already had on for my usual morning jog with Kat. She would have to jog alone this morning. Oh, well. The girl's pretty used to it now.

Took only one look to realize who messed up, really. The last person to make any significant change to MockingNet was Gale freaking Hawthorne. Kat's cousin, that new, 'talented' guy everyone's talking about. The sexist who wants to see more females around him in his workplace.

The idiot who has bypassed the channels and pushed his code straight into production at five PM on Sunday.

Lord. How on earth he even got in? Oh, well. He's kind of gorgeous, I guess. And smarmy. Charming the recruiters and interviewers should come really easily to him, all that confidence and everything else.

Except that he's lost all his credibility, in my eyes. Not that he had much at the first place, but now he has none.

Thank all my unlucky stars that he's not in my team. That, and I won't survive a day without punching him in the face. Or pushing him down the fire escape. Or throwing him out of the window.

Hell, I freaking hate that guy.

Forty-five minutes and a truckload of profanity later, I'm done fixing his problem. By spinning up more machines to handle the requests, of all things. Scandalous.

I must really email him.

It's only then, when I compose that minimally polite email of how he should fix his stuff, that I notice something. He's online. Probably fixing his stuff. Oh, yeah. I did click that 'send blame SMS' button.

I open a new chat window and start jabbing a message for him, for whatever he is doing now is positively useless. I've fixed the thing.

'_You were too late. I'm on it already. Just go back home and sleep. Congratulations for breaking the system._'

And, enter. Done. Message sent. Now, time for some coffee, with a dash of something in it. At this rate, that guy's gonna age me prematurely. Really.

Aaand, this. Just as my non-luck has it, I catch a glimpse of him walking towards the reception. Should just really let him go, like Brainless and Annie would do if they were in my shoes, but hell. I'm not Brainless. I'm not Annie. I'm Johanna Mason, and Johanna Mason doesn't let people go.

Especially the kind who are arrogant jerks like him.

Before I even know what I'm doing, I'm already standing behind him with a claw on his arm. Thinking quickly of a witty line to say, before settling down for this, "well done, Soldier."

He just looks over his shoulder, at first. Then, slowly and surely, he turns around.

Game on.

He glares at me. Trying to be scary, seemingly, but no. I'm not scared. Glares don't scare me. _Men _don't scare me.

I stare on, for I'm not willing to lose this fight. Can't let myself get intimidated by yet another man. _Remember what happened to you eleven years ago, Johanna. You cowered. You were scared. And see where it took you? Nowhere. Stand up for yourself._

"You said I should just go home," he eventually says, moving his gaze to the side of the room. Hell yeah. Avoidance for the winners. "Now, if you'd just let me."

Aha. Blame it on me, won't you?

"Still your fault," I smash back, tilting my head aside to lock my gaze back with his. "No one roll their thing straight into production, Hawthorne. Not even you. Remember it for the rest of your career here."

He looks back at me. No. Looks _down_. And not just because he's much taller. It's obvious he's not thinking much about me.

"I know I was wrong," he spits out, scowling and vicious. "And I was owning up for it, Mason. I don't know what it is you like about attacking me, or why we even started this at the first place, but I'm sick of this."

With that, he frees himself from my grasp and grab my shoulders. Chill starts running down my spine when he bows down straight above my face.

"Quit fighting," he says, angry and harsh. "You're acting like a little girl there, Mason. Let me tell you now: it gets you nowhere."

And, then, right then, the chill in my spine breaks it way through my body. Suddenly, I'm no longer here in the office. I'm fifteen again, crouching in that corner of that leaky shack, whilst the rain is full on outside. With _them _hovering above me.

"_Quit fighting, you little girl. It gets you nowhere."_

I close my eyes and stand still on my place as the memory takes over.

* * *

I don't know what happened afterwards, or how exactly I got back here to my desk, but the first thing I notice as I regain all control back is my tear-stained keyboard.

I've just been triggered. By that jerk, of all possible people.

Now, that's double the humiliation.

A quick glance at my phone confirms it's only seven thirty. I wasn't out for too long, and no one else was here yet. What a saving grace, really. I'd rather die than have anyone seeing me crying.

"Hey."

Perfect timing. That's my brainless best friend Katniss, looking fresh off commute with her light jacket and her bag.

"'Sup?"

She ignores that and stares at me instead.

"You've been crying."

I roll my eyes, for surely, this girl couldn't get more tactical than this.

"Nah," I tell her. "I don't cry, you know. Crying's for you and Annie and the other girls."

She sighs and plops down on my desk-neighbour's empty chair.

"I know what happened," she says quietly. "My cousin called me."

"Oh," I respond, chuckling dryly at the ridiculosity. "What did he say about me?"

"Nothing in particular," she answers me, looking down at the floor. "He's just... concerned, I think. He doesn't know your story."

"And he doesn't need to know," I snap at her, cold and curt. "You don't need to tell him."

She sighs. I turn to the window on my other side, just to hide my brimming eyes. Why am I crying now? What does it solve? Why...

Then Brainless hugs me, and it just all pours out. Don't know why, it just does. I feel just like I did that day in that hospital. Helpless. Ashamed. Weak. Hurt. Every other kind of feeling I've tried hard to forget these past eleven years.

"You should work from home today," she tells me, once it's all done. "You don't look great, and I know you'll hate it if people ask you why."

"Nah," I wave her off, determined to stay here. "I'm not gonna show your cousin he's won it. I'm staying."

She sighs again and shakes her head.

"Fine," she finally says. "Do something to your face, though. You look nothing like yourself."

I laugh and hug my girl for her honesty. Now, that's something she definitely learned from me.

Later in the day, I come back to my desk from a lunch with the girls to find that someone has left me a chocolate bunny.

"From your secret admirer," my newest favourite colleague Finnick says, winking at me. "He's on MockingNet, I believe."

I snort at his remark. Secret admirer my arse. More like my smarmy enemy, in reality.

I pick the thing up and hand it to Finnick, for there's no way I can receive it.

"Here," I say to him, "have it. Or give it back to your friend, if you think it'll go straight to your abs."

Of course, he wouldn't take it. He just looks at me with these puppy dog eyes, like all those times when he needs my help or has fucked up so badly he needed me not to blow up on him.

"Johanna," he pleads me - funny, for he's not the one who needs to plead, actually - "please. He's really sorry."

"Shut up Odair," I chide Finnick, throwing the thing onto his desk. Whoopsie. The thing breaks. Oh, well, will still taste the same, I guess. "Not your place to apologize. If he's the manly man he claims to be, he'll come here and apologize to me. Fullstop. Stop being a busybody, won't you?"

Well, well, well. Now that I've had some time to think about it, it has become really clear to me that I was the provocator. I lost. I blew up first at Gale Hawthorne. But that didn't really give him the right to treat me like that, in all honesty. So, he still has to apologize. In person, not a cowardly way like this.

Finnick's still giving me the puppy dog's eyes, by the way. But I don't care. What is said is said, what is done is done. If he wants to help his friend, he'll talk to him. Otherwise, he should just get it out of that big head of his. To the drains with their brotherhood or whatever that is.

And that's exactly what I end up telling him, a second later. No more, no less.

* * *

They come back to me in my sleep that night. With their threats, their sadistic smiles, and that metal rod. The thing which started up as my death, and ended up as my salvation.

Needless to say, I'm drenched in cold sweat when my eyes finally snap open. Kudos to Gale Hawthorne for pushing me back down the abyss.

A quick look at my phone indicates that it's only three thirty AM. Time to go back to sleep for one and a half hour before the day starts.

...except that I can't. No matter what I do, I can't close my eyes. Not without having bits and pieces of that cold night in Seattle flashing before me again. Five minutes later, I've sat back up on the bed and thrown the cover off my legs in frustration.

I really need to go do something.

I jump off my bed and walk to the light switch next to the door. Click. It's on now. Bright neon light filling the room. I'm safe.

I'm safe. I'm safe. I'm safe.

That little Powerlessness Diary dr. Aurelius gave me ten years ago is still with me. I've kept it throughout the years, tucked safely at the bottom of my underwear drawer. My entries have become less and less frequent as years went by, as predicted by my dear Head Doctor. But I still write it, every now and then. That day we went to the club and had to leave early because someone grope me. That day when I jaywalked a city street at night and got called a rude name starting with a c and ending with a t by a bunch of rowdy kids in a pimped up car. That day I read the news of what happened to that poor girl who took a ride offer from the wrong people in that other country. The anniversaries of my incident, each and every year.

And today I'm just about to add another entry to it. Titled: The Day Their Words Came Out of a Gorgeous Jerk's mouth.

I pick up my pen and start yet another session of my writing therapy.

If Monday was my unlucky day, and Tuesday was pretty much a flat day after I got the thing out of my head and into the diary, Wednesday is perhaps my lucky day in some sense.

Seven _freaking _chocolate bunnies on my desk first thing in the morning. An email from human resources saying that some other employee has just given me a little anonymous gift. My lunch - and Katniss's and Annie's - fully paid off by a mysterious benefactor before we even finished. On top of that, a dinner casserole from our across-the-hallway-neighbour. Whose name is Peeta Mellark, by the way.

Call me an idiot if I haven't smelled a conspiracy behind all of these.

"What the hell your cousin thinks he's doing?" I ask Kat, as she chomps down - eagerly, for she doesn't know the thing's from Peeta Mellark - the casserole at our dining table.

"Just trying to make amends, I guess," the Brainless girl responds, shrugging between mouthfuls of food. "He's always been like that. Being mean, then regretting it and trying to treat you like a princess to set it straight. He'll eventually stop, once you talk to him again."

Yeah, bingo. Talk to him my arse. Let's see how long he can last until he gives up.

"What do you think he'll send me next?" I ask again, smirking to myself as I imagine how exciting this can potentially be.

"Don't know," Kat responds, putting down her fork on her plate after that one last eager mouthful. "Flowers, maybe. Or bears. His last girlfriend posted lots of flowers and teddy bears photos on her MockingNet account."

And so, Thursday morning finds me waiting eagerly for my teddy bears and flowers, while munching on one of the twelve new chocolate bunnies he's put on my desk before the day starts. True to prediction, they do come at the end. A bunch of yellow roses with a teddy bear wearing a yellow ribbon on its neck. Looks like The Gorgeous Jerk wants to be friends.

I laugh to myself as I stash the bear in my backpack, to use as a little personal mock voodoo-doll at home.

Other girls would have swooned and sighed over these little efforts of making up, but I'm not stupid like them. Big boy Hawthorne's most likely just scared I'll report him to Human Resources for workplace aggression or something. I feel a bit sorry for him, actually, for he's doing everything in vain.

He mustn't have realized it had actually been a _mutual _workplace aggression, and that reporting it to Human Resources would have gotten me screwed as well.

Or, in layperson's term: I wouldn't have reported it nevertheless.

* * *

Gale-bear ends up being a decoration in mine and Brainless's place, instead of the voodoo-doll I initially intended it to be.

Okay. I was really close to make it a real voodoo doll. Really, really close. Then, it just looked up at me from its place inside my backpack, and I lost all my resolve. It was cute. Just like any other teddy bear in the world.

And that's basically how I find myself staring at it during a commercial break, as I sit down to watch Sunday afternoon news.

"Jo," Kat says warily next to me, "when are you going to stop making Gale sending you stuff?"

"Well," I answer, triumphant. "He's totally in control of when he's going to stop sending me crap. It's not my responsibility to make him stop sending me gifts, Brainless."

"You shouldn't deceive him, you know," Brainless reasons with me, trying to be the moral guardian she usually is. "It's wrong, and you'll be pretty screwed if he knows."

"I'm not deceiving him." I reason back, throwing my head back to look at the white ceiling. "There's a distinct difference between 'deception' and 'secretiveness'. I'm not telling him lies. I'm just not telling him the truth."

Brainless responds with a sigh.

"Don't play with him, Jo," she finally warns me, turning back to the TV. "You're gonna get burned."

I find myself wishing I'd listen to her a week later, as it dawns on me how sad I am now that the presents and efforts to get my attention has stopped.

* * *

Sunday night, almost a week after that incident with Gorgeous Jerk in the office, I bump into Finnick in my apartment building's lift. The lift stopped at the underground carpark level before it stops again to pick me up at ground floor, and he's already in there when the door opens. Looks like he has some parking access, temporary or permanent.

"Oh, hey boss."

"Hey Finnboy."

Now, the ride is awkward, to the very best. I'm perhaps biased for I'm a bit tired from my big weekend mentoring at that girls' programming camp, but I think Finnick's a bit funny today. For instance, he sort of froze when he saw me. Don't know what he's trying to hide here.

So, being the devil's advocate I am, I ask him, "do you live with Mellark?"

Oh, yeah. Deadpan to the max. He looks absolutely mortified.

"Yeah," he slowly and painfully admits, turning aside a bit I can't really see his face. "Sharing with him and..."

There's a bit of a pause there, and I catch my breath for I know what's going to come out next.

"... Gale."

Shiz. Fark.

With this strange mixture of exhilaration and fear in my veins, I begin my little wondering of how on earth all these coincidences happen in the first place. And decide, right then and there, that I'll spill their beans to Brainless and Annie.

I'm not gonna suffer alone. If I burn, they burn with me.

**to be continued...**

* * *

Alright, everyone. Phase one: getting into all six characters' heads, is over.

From here on, each chapter will contain a mix of Point of Views and storylines - some of which will intertwine. I'll post chapter 7 soon in the honour of my loyal reader De-BardatBoston.

See you soon!


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: **Aaaanddd... alright! Another chapter everyone! Hope you're still enjoying this :).

Thanks for reading everyone. And thanks to Cometas Por El Cielo, De-BardatBoston, and ashjoh123 for their reviews. You guys are the reason I'm still writing :).

**Disclaimer: **All are Suzanne Collins'. Just borrowing here.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

**Peeta**

"Guys, I'm busted too."

That's Finnick's opening line for our Sunday dinner conversation. A bit depressing, I must say, but at least we've all seen it coming. After all, we were only waiting for the timebomb to explode. For the girls across the hall to find that the three of us live here.

The initial plan to go quietly went astray last week, when Gale made this huge mess with Finnick's manager Johanna at work and begged me to deliver some dinner across the hallway in a bid to apologise without having to say sorry. I'd bitten the bullet and decided to help my mate with his odd apology. Luck had it for me that it was Johanna opening the door and not Katniss. That way, I didn't have to face another scowl from Katniss, though at the end they still figured out I live here. Or, Johanna figured out, at least. Katniss hasn't said anything - or even indicated anything - regarding the fact that we're neighbours. I'd like to take it as a sign that she didn't mind, but somehow I knew better than that. If she'd truly known I live here, that small scowl she had on her face every time the situation forced us to talk would just get a little bit bigger.

"Welcome to the club, Finn," I joke, just to lighten up the mood. Now that we're busted, it would be sad if we get depressed about it too.

"And Gale," Finnick corrects, glancing at our quiet, tense friend across the table. "I've just confessed all to Johanna, guys. We don't have any other way around this."

Gale responds with a grunt. Looks like the reality has finally hit him too. I feel sorry for him, for he's definitely in the worst position of all the three of us. Annie's totally fine with Finnick - and the rest of us - and she doesn't live here every single day. Katniss is just wary of me; she doesn't hate me and isn't actively trying to make my life difficult. She's wary of Finnick too, but, again, she doesn't hate him and if anything just ignores him. Johanna, well, Johanna actively and openly hates Gale. Me and Finnick, we're not in hell. Gale is definitely in hell. Well, he doesn't have to be, actually. If only he's not that adamant to not admit his mistake and apologise in person, his situation would have been much better.

Or, maybe... maybe the reality hasn't hit Gale at all. There's that little glint in his eyes, which tells me that this won't be where he gives up on the case.

"What's your plan?" I find myself confronting him, cautious yet curious.

"Well," he answers, looking sideways at me. "Just wait and see."

Somehow, I can sense a war coming. And that things definitely will get worse between the girls and us, instead of better like I've been trying to get it to be.

* * *

Katniss's already there on her desk when I walk into our work area on Monday morning.

"Morning!" I greet her, just like I usually greet everyone else.

No answer. Looks like she's gotten the winds of whereabouts I live now, for usually I still get a grunt out of her.

I pull my postman bag over my head and sit down, deciding not to let Katniss's ignorance bother me. To be honest, it stings. I don't know what I've done wrong to offend her, really. I don't know if she has even given me the chance to actually talk to her. Our interaction doesn't extend beyond questions and explanations regarding the project.

Well. Maybe she's just not one for befriending workmates. As far as I can see, she doesn't really talk to anyone in her immediate team, and is only somewhat friendly to the rest of the female engineers aside of Annie and Johanna.

I wonder when and how she'd changed. The Katniss Everdeen I've secretly observed during those Programming Competition rounds when we were both in high school was open and eager. That dark-haired girl who captivated me as she presented her solution to that diabolical question was confident yet inviting, not workaholic and closed like this woman sitting behind me. I wished I'd been able to push my shyness aside and approach her that day. We could at least have been some kind of acquaintances.

Or I might be dreaming. Perhaps this is all we're meant to be.

Our team's area is still pretty much empty, if not for the two of us and a couple of others. Guess we're the only morning people around. Oh, well. Time to kickstart the work and get productive, I guess. Before I get too distracted answering questions and discussing things with people who stop by my desk.

Just as I typed in my password to log in, one of the few mobile phones in the room vibrates. Some seats down the row, I see Laura Leeg, one of those few others in, picking the call up. She doesn't stand up and leave the room, I notice. Perhaps because there's not many others around.

"Hello?"

The room's so quiet I can hear her soft hiss.

"Yes, this is Laura Leeg."

Whatever the person across the line says must have been really bad, for the next thing I hear is Laura Leeg's whimpers. I swivel around to see what's going on, and saw her hand on her mouth and some tears running down her face. Something must have happened.

I stand up and rush to Laura, kneeling down next to her. She's now nodding at something the person across the line is saying, wiping her eyes with her free hand.

"Alright. I'll be there in half an hour."

Her voice wavers, but it does sound hopeful. Looks like there's still something she could do.

"What happened?" I ask her.

"My sister was in a car crash," she answers, her voice croaking as she picks up her bag and phone and prepares to leave. "I'm needed in Prince of Wales(1) now."

"Laura, I'll come with you."

There's perhaps a moment of freeze, before I can tilt my head and look at the person who's just spoken. Katniss, standing behind us with her bag on her shoulder.

"Katniss..."

Laura's voice trails off as she breaks into sobs.

"Ssh," Katniss says, somewhat awkwardly, as she crouch beside me. "Don't cry. Let's go now. Your sister's waiting."

Laura nods and stands up, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her jacket. I can't help but admiring the strong person she is, for I don't know if I'll be able to gather myself as well as she does had I been where she is now.

Katniss gets up and takes our distraught colleague by her elbow. There is something weird in her eyes - not quite sadness, not quite pity, more like a melancholic nostalgia - when she turns to me.

"Peeta," she says, pleadingly yet reluctantly. "Could you please tell Boggs where we are when he gets in? We might not be back for the day, but I'll make it up at home later."

"Sure," I answer her, for there is no other answer I can give. "I'll send my prayers from here."

With that, they're gone. I scoot back over to my chair and sit still there staring at my login screen for a long, long time. Pondering the enigma who is Katniss Everdeen and what might have happened in her past.

* * *

Laura Leeg was gone for the rest of the day, and so was Katniss. The evening finds me knocking on Gale's closed bedroom door, in a bid for an answer to that one question I have.

"Come in."

I slip, as quietly as possible, into Gale's room. It's straight and clean - in a spotless, eerie way - and minimalistic, with no sight of decorations or hobby stuff there. Bedroom, Drill Sergeant style.

The owner of the bedroom himself is sitting at the desk reading something on his laptop screen. Some tech news, I notice. The only thing he really reads ever since we were at college. He throws me a curt look over his shoulders, before swivelling around to face me. Looks like he's decided that the look on my face is urgent enough.

"Just make yourself comfortable, Dude," he says to me, upon noticing I'm still standing behind his door. "Anywhere."

And that's a cue for, "sit down please", really. I plop down on the carpet right in front of him, just so that I can look him in the eyes when chatting. Gale's really closed, and he tends to hide things. The only way I can tell whether he's being honest about something is by looking at his face. That guy's bad at hiding his emotions - when he feels any.

"How are things with Johanna?" I joke on, just as an opening line.

He chuckles, half amused and half humorlessly.

"Still going," he says, finally. "Don't know yet what would be the smartest move to make, so I'm laying low now. Now, how are things with my cousin?"

This time, it's me who chuckle half humorlessly.

"Not going," I answer him afterwards. "Getting worse, if anything. She still answered to "good morning" last week."

Another dry chuckle and a pat on my back. Drill Sergeant's typical way of dealing with an upset friend.

"She's been a bit odd since that accident," he then says.

Bingo. That's what exactly I want to know.

"What accident?" I ask my friend in all my sincere curiosity.

"Some drunk kid ran their car into her dad's head-on," Gale answers, his tone neutral with only a slight hint of distant sadness. "My uncle was driving with Katniss's sister Prim that time. They were both killed instantly."

And suddenly Katniss's reaction this morning makes a total sense to me. A sister and a car crash. Looks like she hasn't gone completely cold, after all.

"Is that why they moved here?" I ask my friend again, determined to understand more about this enigmatic girl for whom I've started feeling a new kind of curiosity.

"Yes and no," he answers, sliding down onto the floor to meet me at eye level. "She and her Mum spent a few months with my family, I think. Then her Mum disappeared and her aunt took her here to Sydney."

"Your aunt just disappeared like that?" I ask him in disbelief.

"My uncle's widow," he corrects me, looking slightly annoyed that I refer to Katniss's Mum as his aunt. "But yeah, my aunt by marriage I guess. She disappeared. Poof! Like magic. Even her sister Effie - the one who took Katniss in - never heard from her again. Not that Effie talks much to my family anyway, but she still updates us on Katniss from time to time."

"Whoa," I mutter, offering my friend a weak smile. "That's a mess."

"The family's a mess," Gale responds, chuckling. "From our hippies grandparents, to my shell-shocked Dad, Katniss's confused Mum, and many other weird relos(2). Now you know why I'm never that excited to go back home to Radelaide."

Well, I know that feeling so well. Thus, I just offer my friend yet another weak smile.

"Poor Katniss," I mutter afterwards, thinking about the girl who used to be my crush until real life kicked in, and is surely well on her way into being my crush once more - with all that strength and that beautiful enigma surrounding her.

"Yeah," Gale agrees. "My poor cousin. Now that you've pointed out about it, I realized how sucky life has been for her since. Should have made more effort reaching out to her, but..."

"Don't blame yourself, Dude," I cut my friend in, patting him on the back. "You had your own problems to deal with. And you were just kids, for God's sake. Not too late to reach out to her now, though."

"Complicated," Gale stubbornly - yet wistfully - disagrees. "She's best friend with this chick who's hell-bent on making my life difficult. It's not that I don't want to be friends with Catnip again, it's just that I'd rather not be friends with The Axe."

He pauses for a while, before looking at me and shoot straight to the point. "Why don't you reach out to her, then?"

"Been trying to," I answer, sighing for I can't help but feeling a bit pouty. "It's just... Gale, your cousin doesn't want to be friends with me. I don't know what I did to offend her, but... Man, she's just plain hostile."

"I can say the same about her friend, though," Drill Sergeant retorts, getting all defensive.

"No," I set him straight. "It's not the same. You know what offended Johanna, Gale. You just don't see why she's offended. I don't even know what I did to offend Katniss. I have no slightest idea."

Drill Sergeant just huffs and shrugs. Fa...r out. For two grown men earning our own money, we're surely acting like five year olds. Man, I have to fix this. Somehow.

And so, out comes the first idea I have in my mind.

"Hey Gale," I quietly say to my friend, "how about this: I befriend Johanna, and you befriend Katniss. You'll figure out why on earth Katniss's offended, and I'll get Johanna to just let you be. Brilliant, right?"

Well, whatever hits Gale that very moment works in my favour. He clicks his fingers and grins. No. Smirks.

"Deal," he says, extending a hand I shake without much further thoughts.

It's only ten minutes later, when I'm back in my own room and on my own bed, that it sinks to me how bad can that plan potentially go. And, God, how idiotic that plan sounds.

Far. Out.

* * *

**Katniss**

Gale's name flashes on that browser tab I have my chat open on. With a loud sigh, I click on the thing to read what my cousin has to say. I figure out it must be pretty important, since it's literally the first time he's tried to ping me in this whole month he's worked at Mockingjay Tech.

'_Lunch today?_'

I type a quick 'no' on the box, for I'm not planning to have lunch at all today. Have to catch up on my work, after missing so much on Monday. I spent that whole day getting Laura through her ordeal, pretty much. Helping her with logistics and paperworks of her sister's admission and stay in the hospital, and making sure she's alright too. I might have gone a bit out of my way, I realized now, for I don't really know Laura. But I just couldn't let her face what I'd faced ten years ago. I couldn't leave her alone.

I take a deep breath, before my anger at the mother who couldn't even gather her courage to come identify my father and my sister's bodies flares again.

The tab flashes again. With another sigh, I come back to it.

'_Tomorrow?_'

I take a quick look at that little bar on top of my screen to figure out what day tomorrow will be. Today turns out to be Thursday, and tomorrow's Friday. There's no special lunches on Friday, as far as I remember, so that will do. I'll spend the entire Friday night with Jo and Annie anyway, so I don't think they'll miss me much at lunch. And it's damn well time that I catch up with my cousin. We haven't had proper contact in perhaps five years or so, which is crazy because we were inseparable as kids.

And so I type, "Yeah."

That little status bar at the bottom of the chat box indicates he's typing his reply, but I add this on anyway.

"Place's my choice though."

Because there's no way I'll have the tranquil weekend I've dreamt of if Jo catches us tomorrow. She'll be batshit. She really hates Gale. I can already imagine what will unravel. Starting with an angry rant, then a few hours of hostile pouting, and finally a demand that I slip some laxative in my cousin's food the next time I have lunch with him.

Well, alright. Perhaps she's matured a bit in her ways of anger since that last conflict-of-interest tantrum she had our first year(3) of Uni. And even if she hasn't, most probably I'll end up with a different treatment anyway. The object of her anger back then was Annie, who'd agreed to do an extra part of our Engineering Design group assignment on behalf of our lazy, airheaded groupmate Marvel who was the bane of Johanna's existence.

There's a slight bit of pause at Gale's end, before another line flashes.

"_Okay._"

Sorted. Now, time to go back to work. I'll have the whole evening to think of a place Jo won't be able to snoop out.

* * *

"Hey Catnip."

"Hey."

I watch my cousin in silence as he settles down on that chair across me. We're squeezed in at a corner of a bar a few blocks from our office. A place I know Johanna won't go to, at lunch and at any other time. This place is, by her definition, too blokey. Full of people her broken mind will always see as potential predators.

"What did you get?"

Now, that's not the brightest or most personal question ever, but that's the only one I feel most comfortable asking now.

"Same old," he answers me, sliding down lazily on his chair. "I bet you're getting your same old too."

I chuckle. Looks like there are bits and pieces of each other we still know anyway.

"How's life been?" he asks afterwards.

"Pretty good now, I guess," I answer him. "It sucked for a bit, then I met the girls, and it got better. How's yours?"

"Same old," he responds. "Not too bad, but not fantastic either. Thought I've made a good use of my life, but all Mum cares about is that I don't have a wife."

I chuckle again. I know well how much Aunt Hazelle, Gale's mother, talks about that one particular matter. Doesn't matter that my cousin is only twenty eight, in her eyes he's getting really old and should at least get a serious girlfriend.

"And that's the only reason why your life sucks?" I ask him in disbelief, shaking my head.

"Hell, no," he answers, this mixture of smirk and scowl on his face forming a somewhat tragic, weird smile. "Twenty eight and still climbing the corporate ladder, Dad still in madhouse, still saving up to buy a house, still not knowing where I'll stay in the world, and..."

He pauses and lets out this strange chuckle, before continuing, "now there's this crazy feminist of a girl thinking I'm a downright jerk."

"Gale," I set him straight on it, rolling my eyes. "You are sometimes a jerk."

"I'm not," he disagrees, serious and hostile. "I'm just being me."

"And you are a jerk," I throw it back at him, taking a sip of my coke. "But anyway. How was the States?"

"Pretty good," he answers, relaxing a bit now that I've dropped the subject of him being a jerk. "Different from here, but not too much different. Still in the Western world. Still English-speaking. A better place to be a computing person, I guess, but here's not that terrible. Except for your best friend, of course."

"Damn you, Gale!" I tell him off, a bit pissed that he won't drop that subject. "Stop egging on her!"

"Not when she's egging on me every single day," he responds, repeating that point he's made every so often. "What's actually her problem?"

"Gale," I warn him, sighing tiredly. "Let's just have lunch and catch up, OK? She'll leave you alone when she's bored of it. I know her."

"Fine," he snaps back, taking a sip of whatever beer he has on the table. It's quite ironic how much more like his Dad he's become now. He used to hate the man when we were younger. I still remember the day he walked to my house after an argument with his Dad, barefoot and furious. Back then, he'd sworn before my eyes that he would never ever be like that man who fathered him. Now, it looks like he's heading the same direction. Drinking. Subconsciously looking down at women. Just being a jerk in general.

I don't know what happened to my cousin, really, but it dawns on me that he's no longer that brilliant, passionate boy I know from my childhood. This Gale is bitter and world-weary, and hell-bent on getting something I don't understand. Perhaps power, perhaps recognition. Quite impossible to tell.

"How's Peeta doing in your team?" Gale asks me a few seconds later, leaning over the table in what might be an intimidating gesture.

"He..."

I don't really know what to say, for I don't exactly like Peeta Mellark. I don't hate him too, though. It's just, like, I feel there's something off with him, something behind all that kindness.

"He's alright," I finally find the right thing to say to not be a bitch and inspire Gale to egg on Jo again. "For someone new to Product Management, he's doing really well."

"Okay," my cousin responds, leaning back on his chair as we fall into another round of silence. "Just wanna make sure he's not being the pushover he sometimes is and fall into the trap of doing others' works for them."

So, Peeta Mellark is indeed nice. And indeed too nice, according to his own best mate. I feel my shroud of wariness coming off a bit. Perhaps the guy's just like Annie, who's nice to everyone and anyone without discriminating.

Gale and I manage to make some small talks during our lunch. A bit of a big step, I must say, for we barely spoke to each other the whole time he was in the States and I was here in Sydney. At the end of it, I've gotten a bit of my cousin back. Not a bad thing, I suppose. If anything, getting to know Gale again comes much easier to me than I expected. Perhaps because I knew him at one stage and I knew he wouldn't disappoint.

"You know we live across your unit, don't you?" he asks me, as we take a careful walk back to the office.

"Yeah," I answer. "J... someone told me."

"Why didn't you just say 'Jo told me'?" he asks again, sneering.

"Because you won't stop flaming my friend," I answer him, tired and straightforward.

He purses his lips in this straight line, but at the end decides to just suck it up.

"Come visit one day," he says to me then, as we turn back to the street where our office building is. "Peeta's a great chef. Put in your request and he'll make it."

"Perhaps order takeaway or something," I disagree. "I don't wanna impose on your housemate."

"That's fine, really. The guy loves cooking."

"But..."

That sentence never finishes, for I see something in the distance. By instinct, I slip behind my cousin's larger frame; enough to be unseen and still be seeing.

"Gale," I ask my cousin quietly, after those two people entered our building and disappeared from view. "Since when your friend Peeta is friends with my friend Jo?"

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 A public hospital in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs (Randwick to be more exact), near the University of New South Wales.

2 relos = relatives

3 In Australia, we don't have 'freshman', 'sophomore', 'junior', and 'senior'. We just refer to them as first year, second year, third year, and fourth year.

* * *

Thanks for reading everyone. Oh, and before any of you get any wrong idea, Johanna and Peeta are not - and will not be - dating in this story. What you've just seen was part of that deal Gale and Peeta made in the first part. It would have some kind of effect, though, which I'll expose further in chapter 8.

Stay Gold!


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: **Hello! Thanks for reading, following, and favouriting. Special thanks to my reviewers: De-BardatBoston, kiera14, and ashjoh123. You guys all rock my world :).

I'd like to dedicate this chapter to De-BardatBoston, a loyal follower of this story and a damn fine motivator. Hope you enjoy it - especially the second from last P.O.V I wrote specifically with you in mind ;).

**Disclaimer: **All characters belong to Suzanne Collins. I'm just borrowing them here for the sake of a hobby, and definitely am not making money from it - and will never sell this story to make money.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**Finnick**

This drowsiness has started becoming really irritating.

I lean forward and place my hand strategically over my mouth, pretending to be thinking whilst in reality I'm yawning widely in front of my monitors. It's kind of embarrassing, but I don't think I even know what I have opened on my browser tabs now. There's some email inbox there, but I don't even know whether it's my work email or my personal one I have open.

"Hey Finnboy! Where's that server crash investigation triage summary(1)?"

I swivel around on my chair to look my yelling Team Lead in the eyes.

"On the way, Jo," I respond to her, putting up a smile though in all honesty I just want to sigh out loud. "Yesterday night was hell. I'm a bit slow today."

Now, that's something my Mates definitely wouldn't use as an excuse to perform poorly at work, but I don't have any alternatives for the time being. And that's what actually happened. I had a whooping total of thirteen pages last night I barely slept.

Johanna just rolls her eyes. I notice that she's letting me be, though, for she just turns back to her monitors and stops pestering.

With my eyes closed, I give my head a quick shake just for the sake of waking myself up.

"Coffee?"

_Damn it. Of all possible times in the world, why now?_

Call me a dreamy coward, but I find myself twisting my chair a little just to catch a glimpse of Annie from the corner of my eyes. She's wearing this long-sleeved green dress today, with a pair of black tights. Her hair's up in her usual work ponytail; sometimes I deliberately walk past her desk only to watch her twirling it as she gets lost in her thoughts.

"Sure," I hear Johanna's half-grumpy, half-glad answer. Today's totally not a good day for the team, server crashes and overloads and a DOS(2) attack threat which sees us contacting the security team(3) in San Fran. If there's something about Johanna I've learned working as her underling, it's that she always gives all she has for what she believes in. And providing a reliable web service is one of the things she believe in, thus, predictably, she's putting in so much on our current problems. I imagine she's glad to be able to tune out for a bit, but also grumpy that she has to get away.

What comes out next, though, is something can't predict.

"Finnyboy, want coffee?"

I deliberately take my time swivelling around, for I don't know what to say.

"Uh, I..."

"Oh, whatever," Johanna cuts in, before I have the chance to really answer. "Come on, Crazy. I don't have much time."

With that, she turns around and heads for the kitchen. I swivel back around, just enough so that I can follow Annie with my eyes as she walks behind Johanna.

I really hope this will pass.

**Annie**

"Sorry that your day sucks," I tell Jo, who stands behind me as I make her coffee.

"Meh," she responds, sounding indifferent though I know she's actually glad someone acknowledges that something indeed sucks for her. "I'll pull through. Things had been worse."

Once I'm done, I hand my friend her coffee and pick mine up. As usual, I let her lead the way - she's much better in that than me, I know. Jo chooses a seat which isn't actually a seat. A low windowsill, to be exact, bordering that big glass window with city view. One of her favourite spots here in the office, I know.

"How's Kat?" I ask her, knowing that the subject of Kat has been bothering her for a bit.

"Still having a fit," Jo answers, turning her head from the scenery to me. "Still getting all cozy with her jerk of a cousin. So Brainless."

I chuckle, though I honestly don't find this funny. I just don't know how else to react.

"Has she told you why she's mad?" I ask Jo again.

"No need," she answers me snappily. "Mellark. That's all of her problem."

I sip my coffee and look back at Jo. I know she's actually sad beneath all those anger on the surface. After those initial frictions in year eleven, Kat and her have never been really at odds with each other. This weirdness is pretty much recent - since Jo starts bonding with Peeta Mellark over a mutual passion for Women in Computing, and Kat starts reconciling with her cousin Gale. It feels like primary school again, watching your friends getting angry at each other because they befriend each other's enemy.

"Is she talking about it?" I ask again. Knowing Kat, the answer is most probably 'no', but I thought I'll ask.

"Crazy," she answers me, a bit tiredly. "This is Brainless we're talking about. What do you think the answer is?"

"No."

"Finally," Jo responds, rolling her eyes. "Hail, Captain Obvious!"

I laugh, for she's funny. Even when she's mean, she's funny.

I decide to change the topic and discuss some mundane stuff about what's hot and what's not in current fashion for the rest of our coffee session. Jo and Kat's problem is theirs. I know I can't really do much further. One of them eventually will come to sense and start making an effort.

"Slavery time," Jo announces, once we finish our coffee. "Thanks for the coffee, Crazy."

We walk back together to our desks, discussing our weekend plan. As I drop her by her place and start heading to mine, though, I notice one thing. Finnick's definitely falling asleep on his desk; eyes open but unfocused and shoulders so slack he's so ready to topple forward.

I head back to the kitchen and make him some coffee.

* * *

**Gale**

"You coming tonight?"

I turn to Finnick, who's currently sitting on that empty chair next to mine.

"Not sure," I tell him. "Things doesn't look good with our servers."

"But you're not _the_ team," he persuades me again, putting this attempt on puppy-dog eyes which isn't quite convincing. "Come have some fun! Let others handle it, just this once."

"Dude," I chide him, rolling my eyes at him. "Most of them are in that conference in New York now. Thom's out today; his kid's sick. I'm the only one here. I can't just go away."

Finnick sighs.

"Fine, then," he eventually gives up. "Just in case you need to bail out, the offer still stands."

I mutter this common-courtesy thanks to him and turn back to my code, as he stands up and walks out of my area. Even after he came to me and Peeta all giddy and dreamy after Annie Cresta made him that coffee a few days ago, he's still planning yet another one of his Friday nights for today. Which will involve spending the night with some random girl, I know, for Finnick is a freaking ladies' man. Simple as that.

I haven't even managed to make a single change when the next distraction arises.

"Hey Man," Peeta says, standing behind me. "You right?"

"Yeah," I answer him. "Just a bit busy."

"You staying late today?"

"Looks like I'll be staying late indeed," I answer him, still without looking. "Look at this freaking mess. Still trying to figure out what the heck happened."

"Alright then," he responds understandingly, shifting a little. "You need dinner or something?"

"Nah, I'll be fine," I answer him. "Thanks though."

"Well, take care then."

He's gone with that. Thank heavens for such an understanding, kind Mate.

All distractions gone, now all I have left is this bloody problem to fix. I don't quite know what's going on, to speak honestly. This thing was done by a different sub-team from the one I'm in, and hasn't been updated in months. Nothing's impossible, though. Might as well try some tweaks I know, whether or not they like it. What's important now is fixing this problem, not how perfectly you can code something.

"Oh, what the hell..."

That's definitely for no one but myself to hear right now, for the sky is darkening outside and everyone else around me is gone. Even the geekiest of geeks don't work Friday nights. Not when they all have their copies of Bioshock Infinite(4) waiting to be played at home. The thing was out couple of weeks ago, and I've been watching Peeta and Finnick playing it together - wrecking it together, to be more exact.

I don't know how many hours I end up spending tracing down where this code went wrong, really. It's so damned poorly maintained. Think of an old shack which just keeps getting extended with some haphazardly done rooms and additions, instead of being reconstructed and rebuilt whenever it crumbles. Since I started looking at it I've encountered perhaps ten different silly bugs, a proof that this code is most probably not correct.

When I look up from my screen, some time later after sending a changelist to fix those ten bugs, the sky's totally dark, and so is the office. Except, my area and another one on the other side of the building. Finnick's area.

The Axe's area.

While I haven't been successful in getting my cousin Catnip to tell me why of all reasons she gives Peeta such a shitty treatment, Peeta's actually been successful in figuring out from Miss Mason why she insists on making me her nemesis. It's a predictable answer, actually. That one joke I made my first day here - to Finnick, who was the most appropriate recipient of that joke - set her off. She thinks I'm a misogynist - whatever that really means. That created a ripple effect in everything else, so much that she hates everything I do.

That girl's so freaking childish.

Shaking the thoughts away, I get up to find something to eat in the mini-kitchen. Most probably it's fully looted, but I figure out it's worth trying. I don't like the thought of going out and buying food by myself right now. My mood's not that great.

The kitchen's lights are already on when I get there. Perhaps someone forgot to turn it off before they left.

... or not.

There's one other person there, sitting on a windowsill with a mug of something in her hands. Wearing this girly top and her frayed jeans - _again _- and the usual combat boots.

"Not out there hitting on hot chicks, huh?"

I curse in my head, as I realize I'm spending my Friday night in the office with no one else by Miss Johanna Mason in here.

**Johanna**

Finally.

After those long, long weeks of out-there-but-not-quite-out-there battle, Gale Hawthorne and I have come to a face-off. An unintentional one, I must say, but, still, a face-off. Sweet.

I stand up from my perch and put my mug down on the kitchen bench, just so that we're in neutral position. He just stands still on his position; no sign of retreating or trying to get away. Pretty great, I must say.

"Nah," he finally answers me, after what must be a minute or so of silence. "Things don't look great in MockingNet."

I look on. This could either be dedication or smarm, and I'm determined to know which one of that it is.

"Oh, I see," I begin my attack. "Wanting to look good, eh?"

He shoots me a sharp, scalding look.

"I'm the only one in today," he says, not losing his ground - yet. "No one else's gonna do it if I don't. Talk responsibility here, Mason."

Oh, alright. Whatever.

"How about you?"

I snort.

"Something's failing," I admit to him, figuring out there's no harm in doing so. "And everyone else apparently have family or couple plans, so it's the young single Johanna getting foddered."

He looks aside, as if thinking about my answer.

"Looks like we're here for similar reasons, after all," he then tells me, his face straight as usual though there's this ghost of a smirk on his lips.

And it just hits me, right there and right then.

"Damn it. You're right," I say - while berating my stupid self for failing to see this before he did.

Silence falls again. He doesn't respond straight away.

"Well," eventually, it comes out. "Shouldn't we display some form of solidarity?"

I laugh at this.

"Over my dead body," I tell him, as I pick up my mug and walk back to my desk.

He follows me around. I deliberately ignore him, just so. He plops down next to me as I reclaim my work chair. Stares on, as I unlock my screens and start working again. All while displaying this straight-if-not-slightly-annoyed face, which is plain infuriating.

I only last a minute or so before exploding at him - again.

"What? Why are you stalking me now? What are you looking at? Go back to your desk, Hawthorne!"

He chuckles, as if I'm telling him a freaking joke.

"Don't you freaking understand English, Hawthorne? Just freaking go!"

But he doesn't go away. Not until I finally give up and stand up to go home - at which point he starts walking with me uninvitedly, chuckling all along as I fume out our whole way home to our apartment building.

* * *

**Peeta**

"Your Mate Hawthorne stalked me all the way home on Friday, Blondie."

Now, that's one hell of a lunch conversation opener from Johanna.

"He _what_?" I ask her, laughing a bit for it would be really funny if it was true.

"Stalked. Me. All. The. Way. Home."

Now, that's definitely real. I can see how pissed this new friend of mine is.

"Well," I say to her, just calmly, for getting all riled up as well won't help. "What exactly happened?"

"Bumped into him in the mini-kitchen after hour," she explains, still pouting - no, snarling. "Told him to go away, but he waited around for me and just started walking beside me come home time. Very accommodating."

Wow. This little standoff game between Johanna and Drill Sergeant has just gone up to a whole new level.

"That's kind of out-of-character, right?" she asks me then, looking up from her sandwich.

"Kind of," I agree with her, for her judgement of Gale's character is right.

She gives me an eyeroll then takes a begrudging bite from her sandwich. So much angst and energy, going into something which is pretty much useless.

"Anyway," she says afterwards, looking a little bit better that she's gotten it all out, but still pretty pissed. "Kat is still pissed as at me. You'd better be a worthy companion, Blondie."

"Sorry," I offer Johanna my apology, feeling a bit guilty that my attempt to be her friend in order to understand Katniss has kind of brought her down.

"Don't say sorry," she waves me off. "Her problem, not yours. Who asks her to be irrational anyway? She's acting like we're still in High School or something."

"That's kind of human," I disagree. "I'd be pissed if one of my Mates befriends that jerk from MockingMail Cato or his likes."

She just grunts. Neither agreeing nor disagreeing with what I say.

We've all come to the conclusion that Katniss is wary of me, for some reasons only herself can explain. Johanna guesses it's my _personality _- apparently I'm too nice and she's afraid I'm insincere. Another guess is, ironically, that bun I gave her years ago that day she fainted at Prog Comp. Gale told me Katniss has always hated _charity_. She's proud. And strong.

_And wounded, _I remind myself, as that revelation of what Katniss's mother did comes back to my mind.

"Umm... mind if I join?"

I tilt my head quickly to where the voice comes from, just to make sure I'm not the only one hearing it. It sounds like something which cannot be.

But it _can _be, actually. Standing before me and Johanna is the one and only of Katniss Everdeen, with a paper bag in hand.

"Finally," Johanna answers, kicking my shin underneath the table before I can say anything. That's neither an answer, nor an invite - more like an exclamation or expression of relief. "About time you talk to me again, Brainless."

Katniss rolls her eyes, but plops down nevertheless. Next to Johanna, predictably - I'm not expecting her to be fully comfortable sitting next to me yet, though surely she's quite gotten used to me at work. I reach for my bottle of coke and take a swig, just to keep myself from smiling or doing anything which might scare her off.

"Where's your usual lunch buddies?" Johanna ask Katniss, eyeing her friend from the corner of her eyes while mimicking my gesture with her own bottle of coke.

"Gale has a team lunch," Katniss answers. "Annie's taking Finnick Odair to lunch today."

Both Johanna and I choke on our drinks at this.

"She's _freaking_ what?" Johanna asks Katniss, almost yelling at her friend.

"Taking Finnick Odair to lunch," Katniss answers, sure as fire and somewhat annoyed. "Seriously, you two. If you can take each other to lunch, why can't Annie take Finnick to lunch?"

Johanna looks at me, with this comical raise of her eyebrows I find hard not to start laughing at.

"Dammit, Brainless," Johanna then says with a snort. She turns back to Katniss and slings an arm over her friend's shoulders, casually. "Two lunches can be both lunches, but they can be different from each other. You think Blondie here and I have the hots for each other? You'd better be damned for that. You think Finnick and Annie have the hots for each other? Well, you are bloody right."

Katniss pouts and folds her arms on her chest like a little girl. I look down at my sandwich to hide my smile, as she surely looks rather adorable in her strong-headedness.

"How's your Women in Computing initiative going?" she then asks, deciding to drop her annoyance all of a sudden.

Instead of barging in as usual, Johanna decides to just eye me. Looks like I'm the one who must answer this time.

"Going pretty well," I answer her, being my usual self though deep down I can't shake this worry that I'll make her even more uncomfortable around me. "Johanna here is looping me into helping in the next Girls' Programming Camp. We're discussing ways to rope in some male engineers to participate."

"Ask the ones who have daughters," Katniss then suggests, unwrapping her sandwich while somewhat eyeing me. "They're more likely to care, in my opinion."

"Well, he doesn't have a daughter, yet he cares," Johanna barges in this time, pointing at me. "Though, yes, he's a rare case I must say."

Katniss grunts in between sandwich bites. As if acknowledging what her friend says, while still being suspicious at me.

"Well," I decide to bare my soul a bit, just to ease this tension between me and this girl I like. "I have this female best friend who gave up on Computing halfway through her degree because she didn't feel supported. It's a pity, really, for she definitely can do it if she wants. I started caring for your cause here the year she quit."

"Oh well. So that's actually personal," Johanna says across me, her eyes glint in something which might be an "aha!". "What does your friend do now?"

"She picked up graphics design or something like that," I answer her, thinking about my childhood best friend Delly. "You might actually have met her already. You know Thom from MockingNet, right?"

They both nod and hum this small recognition.

"She's married to him."

"Oh!" Katniss exclaims, perking up a bit. "You know Delly!"

I smile at this.

"We grew up together," I tell Katniss, as I ball up my now empty sandwich bag. "Friends since primary school."

"Oh, I see," she says, her face falling flat again but no longer hostile. Man. I like watching those subtle changes on her face. This girl is... lively. In her own way.

"Actually," I add on, as I remember something suddenly. "She's some kind of second cousin by marriage or some distant relations like that with me, now that I remember it."

Johanna snorts at this.

"That's a bit like Brainless and the jerk," she comments. "Except that those two are more closely related than you and Mrs. Thom."

"Jerk?" Katniss asks, looking at Johanna with a glint of something in her eyes. "I thought you like him or something."

Johanna rolls her eyes, though she makes no retort. Somehow - and with this general 'black comedy' feeling - I start thinking that she indeed _likes _him.

"Anyway," she then says, as if waving Katniss's statement off. "What's up with your fluffy arse these days?"

"Work," Katniss answers almost instantly. "Work, and work, and work. Nothing else."

"And what's this work which keeps you busy?" Johanna drills on.

Katniss tilts her head and looks at her friend somewhat mysteriously.

"Secret," she answers, much to mine and Johanna's curious chagrins.

**Katniss**

Boggs is back from his lunch, and is hunched over his desk when I get back from that little awkward lunch with Jo and Peeta Mellark - which I'm still berating myself upon internally, by the way.

Seriously, I didn't know what hit me when I came over and asked them whether I could join them. I just miss Johanna in general. We haven't chatted for a bit. There's no time for chatting nowadays, with her playing Bioshock Infinite and cursing all over the living room after work, and me conceiving this pet project of mine in my room. That, and the fact that I was sort of pissed at her I couldn't really tell her anything. A bit like those short few weeks in our final year of Uni, when we had that fight over her ratting out Annie's cheating boyfriend to our dear friend.

Guess I can't really stay away from my friend, no matter how pissed off I am at her. Jo and Annie are the only people with whom I can totally be myself and still be understood and loved and wanted.

"Katniss," my team lead calls me, snapping me away from my thoughts. "You have five minutes?"

"Sure," I answer him. My heart starts beating rapidly in my chest. I sent him that initial design for my pet project this morning. I really hope that's what he's gonna talk about.

We make our quiet way - neither Boggs nor I are talkers - to an empty meeting room. I can't help but feeling cautiously hopeful along the way. I really want to make that thing happen. It's sort of a personal project to me; a passion.

"Your proposal," he starts, once we're both in and the door's closed. "I personally like it, and I think it's a great idea. But... Katniss, you know how things are since Snow and Coin stepped up as Co-chairmen of the Board of Directors. It's all about money, money, money and paying customers now. Something like what you proposed won't stand a chance."

"But... but, Mockingjay Tech was founded to provide reliable and affordable web services for everyone, right?"

That sounds weak and defeated, coming from me. But that's how I feel now. Weak, defeated, angry, crestfallen. Since Cori Snow and Alma Coin were recruited from that big-buck-making-financial-company, Mockingjay Tech has been nothing but yet another money-making company.

Boggs lets out this pained sigh.

"Yes, Katniss," he eventually tells me. "It's just... well, when you've worked long enough in the industry, you'll understand what this is all about, eventually. At the end of the day, we still need to make money. Now, I don't always agree with Snow and Coin and their ways, but... I think they sometimes have valid points."

He pats me on my shoulder apologetically afterwards and walks out, leaving me alone with my wounded ideals and my anger.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 i.e a short report of why a server died and how you think it should be fixed.

2 Denial of Service - happens when some hackers try to hammer your website to bring it down or make it impossible for others to access it.

3 As in computer security/anti-hack team, not the security you see walking around with a gun and some handcuffs.

4 A real adventure/shooting video game with a mind-blowing story. Won't spoil much here, but it's one of those games which story I actually like.

* * *

Alright, everyone. That's it for now. Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed it :).

I'm still writing chapter 9 now (517 words so far and counting). Hope I'll be able to get it out in the next couple of days, though - can't wait to get the real 'action' of the story going :).

Till then!


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: **Hello. Thanks for reading, and following and favouriting. Special thanks to De-BardatBoston for the review. Everyone here rocks :).

So here's the second chapter for the weekend, hot off the press. Literally just finished this, with that evil little cliffhanger at the end. Told in everyone's P.O.V, coupled into three different parts. Hope you'll enjoy it!

**Disclaimer: **Nothing here is mine but the plot. I'm just borrowing the work of the amazing Suzanne Collins for the sake of a hobby.

* * *

**Chapter 9**

**Peeta**

Katniss's mood has definitely been really sour these past few days. Not because of me, I suppose - if anything, she's been a little friendlier since our lunch together. She just sulks the whole day, for a reason I don't know.

"What's with Katniss?" I whisperingly ask Johanna one day, as we sit down for our impromptu meeting regarding the effort on getting the male engineers to volunteer in the girls' programming camp.

"Apparently her newest idea is deemed too altruistic by Boggs," Johanna answers, blunt and straightforward. "I personally think it's a badass idea, but Boggs has a point. This company fights for nothing but money, money, and money these days."

I chuckle, for I agree wholeheartedly with her. Whilst I'm nowhere near frank as she is, I do agree that this company is too much about money, money, and money right now. Something I wish I'd known before I accepted that Product Manager position.

"Coin and Snow suck," she continues, much to my amusement and amazement. "If only I don't care about our services, I would've made my way out of here the second they took office."

Her statement rings through the meeting room - and apparently outside, for a few heads immediately turn towards us. Johanna just let the entire Sydney office Finance Team know that she has such a low opinion of our Co-Chairmen.

"Oh, let them be," she mutters to me, upon realizing I've been staring outside. "I don't give a dime of what they think."

I chuckle again, trying not to indulge too much in the tempting notion of flaming Coin and Snow along with this new friend of mine, for it doesn't fix anything.

"So, about our little project," I say, trying to divert Johanna's attention towards what we can fix. "What do you think of that proposal I sent you?'

"The one in which you want to make this glamorous movie of what happens there?" Johanna shoots.

"Yeah," I tell her. "That one."

"That's pretty great," she tells me. I look at her, as she leans forward on her chair and put her elbows on the table, resting her chin atop her clasped palms. "Now, the combination of that and something along Kat's idea - that's wicked."

"Shiz," I jibe good-naturedly, as it dawns on me how _great _that idea would be combined with Katniss's rebuked idea of dedicated video and web streams for events of public interest. "That's truly wicked."

"Yeah," Johanna chimes, somewhat slyly and somewhat sarcastically. "That would've been really wicked, had that idea not been rebuked. Now, if only we can..."

"... make Katniss's idea happen?" I finish up for her, grinning a bit for I finally get what Johanna actually wants of me.

"Yep, smart boy."

I laugh at this, for now her intention is fully clear. I _am _to help Katniss getting her idea approved, in the capacity as a Product Manager for MockingVid.

"Go monetize the thing, Golden Boy," she says, gesturing towards the door playfully. "If you do it right, we might have a winning strike here."

**Katniss**

Concentrating is really hard these days, ever since Boggs told me my idea won't float. But, still, I try my best. I can't just abandon my baby MockingVid the way my mother has abandoned me, just because something isn't working in my favour. That's not an acceptable behaviour.

There are times, though, when I can't think at all, and there's nothing I can do except walking away from it all for a second. And thus that's what I'm doing now, sitting in the mini-kitchen with a cup of coffee in my hand. My third one for the day, at only an hour after lunch.

"Care if I join?" a now-familiar voice greets.

I turn around and straight away see Peeta Mellark, my newest acquaintance.

"Sure," I tell him finally, attempting my best impression of a smile as I scoot over a bit to make room for him. He returns the smile as he takes the seat next to mine, and for a split second, I thought he's rather... cute.

Crap. I must've been so wounded about my pet project my brain short-circuited.

"Heard about your rejected proposal," he quietly says, once we're fully settled in. "That must have sucked."

"Who told you?" I hiss back at him, annoyed that someone spilled such a personal thing to this guy I barely know.

"Johanna," he answers. "We were discussing something along that line for our Women in Computing initiative, and she mentioned you actually made a similar proposal. We're pretty bummed about it. That would've been really awesome."

I don't know if I should be angry at Johanna for spilling the beans, or be glad that I have people who sympathise with my little idea. A few seconds later, I decide to stay with the second option for the time being and just enjoy the mental company of this seemingly nice man. Sometimes - and just _sometimes_, I think - it's nice to actually be able to enjoy people's company.

"What did Boggs say, actually?" he asks, still in this discreet quietness he's been putting forward.

"He said it's impossible to get it approved with our new Co-Chairmen in control," I answer. It weirds me out that my answer was so straightforward and honest whilst I know very little of my current companion. Yet at the same time it feels liberating, being able to tell someone what you've been feeling without a fear.

He chuckles at this.

"Well," he tells me afterwards, turning to me. "Looks like our Team Lead has gotten a good grasp of Cori Snow and Alma Coin now. Bet someone had tried doing something out of love before and got a hard slap."

"Yeah," I agree, tilting my head sideways to mimic his gesture. "Have you ever heard about Mitchell? The PM before you?"

"A little bit," he says, frowning. "The guy who had mental breakdown after a trip to head office, right?"

"Yep," I confirm. "That Mitchell. No one knew the full story, but apparently he got slammed pretty bad for standing up for a non-profitable project it shattered him."

My eyes dart around quickly as soon as I finish this sentence, as it dawns on me that we're here in the office talking about the Chairmen of the Board. Luck has it that we're alone in the mini-kitchen today; everyone seems to still be content from their lunches.

Peeta looks at me.

"You think we can monetize your idea?" he then asks, tilting his head a bit.

"Don't like that," I admit honestly, huffing a bit. "I suppose it can do, though, if we have no other way. Can you think of how?"

He looks out of the window for a second, before turning back to me and saying, "we have a new proposal to make now."

* * *

**Finnick**

I don't know why and how, but I haven't been enjoying my last two Friday nights as much as I should.

Nothing has changed in its generic formula. Bar, then the club, then some girl's place for a hookup. What has changed is _me_.

Instead of feeling empowered like I usually did whenever I managed to chat a girl up, I felt a bit sick because I knew I wouldn't be able to promise her anything past the night. Everything which happened in the club seemed wrong, me dancing random girls without even asking whether they wanted to dance. And, the hookup... Oh, Lord. Don't ask me about that. I stalked out of the girls' places with a great disgust of myself those last two times, before the night was even done. Much to the joy of my Mates - whom I know never fully approve of this particular lifestyle of mine.

I guess I'm done being a Ladies' Man. Somehow.

And that's how exactly I find myself in the apartment's pool at eight AM on a Saturday morning, swimming my way out of the bewildering confusion in my head. Swimming my way out of thinking too much about Annie, the friendship we're rekindling, and the realisation that I've never cared for any other woman the way I care about her.

Right now, I'm resting in a corner, catching my breaths after some long laps I didn't even count. Facing away from the water, at the wall of the indoor pool room. Man. What have I done with my life, and what can I do with it now?

"Finnick!"

_Crap._

The person I'm swimming away from is actually here in this pool.

With this sense of dread, I turn around to face Annie. She floats there right behind me, in what looks like a sea-green one-piece, laughing innocently and freely. On the other side of the pool, stands her friend Katniss, who shoots me a distant smile as I smile to acknowledge her.

"Seems like we have the same thoughts here," I finally say the only thing I think fits the situation. "Where's your Mummy?"

Annie gives me this questioning look - _Man, isn't that look cute? _- for a bit, before it dawns on her that I was asking about her other friend.

"Ah, Mummy Jo!" she then exclaims, clicking her finger together. "She's outside jogging. She doesn't like getting wet."

"Like a cat?" I try to make a pun.

"Yes!" Annie exclaims again. "Like a cat!"

She seems pretty oblivious to my real intention of making a pun of Katniss's nickname, until 'Kat' herself snorts loudly from her perch in the distance.

"Wait," the girl of my secret dreams then adds. "Jo is like a cat. Jo is like a Kat. Whoa!"

She then puts on this face which basically tells me her mind is blown, making me laugh at her.

"Jo isn't like me," Katniss chimes in wearily in the distance. "That conclusion is invalid. She is like a cat, though. Like, miaw."

Annie's laughter rings again; this time invoked by Katniss's imitation of a cat. At this rate, it looks like she's gonna continue swimming in my brain, appearing at random moments of inspiration.

"Race me?"

I take a deep breath and look at her.

"Challenge accepted, my Lady!"

Seriously, I can't deny her.

**Annie**

Meeting Finnick by chance and racing him in the pool makes me really happy, somehow. I smile all my way back up to Jo and Kat's place upstairs afterwards, and sing my way through my shower - only stopping when Jo violently knocks the bathroom door, asking if I'm alright.

"I heard you had a mental skinny-dip with Finnyboy," she says to me, as we girls make our way out for breakfast around half an hour later. "How was it?"

"T'was good," I answer her, laughing a bit at her skinny-dip reference. "Though it was more of a race than a skinny dip, really."

"But you did strip each other naked with your eyes, didn't you?" Jo drills on, a gleam of something in her eyes.

"Geez, Jo," Kat interrupts, wary and slumped. "Stop the innuendos, won't you? Not everyone is as perverse."

"I'm not a bloody pervert," Jo retorts, jabbing her index finger at Kat. "The problem is _you_."

Kat rolls her eyes and huffs. She doesn't say anything though - typical of Kat.

"Back to Annie and Finnick," Jo then decides, putting me in her iron grip once more. "What's with you guys nowadays? The lunches? The coffee? The swim?"

"I'm just making efforts to be friends again," I calmly answer, knowing well it would disappoint Jo. I have no other choice, really. Anything but that would be a lie.

"Ooh, friends," Jo chastises, to Kat's annoyed glance. "Friends with intentions?"

"Friends," I answer her firmly, halting as we arrive at an intersection. "Now, which way to go?"

"That wa..."

I watch in amusement, as Jo suddenly twists around and points to another direction.

"This way," she corrects then, putting on this straight face which actually just tells me that she's indeed up for something.

"Umm... okay," I agree, tentatively as I don't know what Jo's actually planning. This can be good, can be bad - no one can predict what Jo's gonna do.

"Jo," Kat cuts in sharply, eyeing us warningly. "No. Let's just go somewhere else."

"What?" Jo hisses, putting her hands on her hips. "It's perfect, Kat! When else we're gonna have breakfast with our work lunch buddies?"

Squinting at the direction Jo pointed at earlier, I finally see what my friends are arguing over. There, on an outside table of one of the local cafes, sit Finnick and his Mates - their across-the-hall neighbours. No wonder Jo's so adamant in going that way. There are so many things she can achieve just by joining them for breakfast today. One, establishing that Finnick and I are just friends. Two, chatting to Peeta, who is her friend now. And three, putting on a perfect revenge on Gale Hawthorne who has apparently annoyed her a hell lot the last time they had a standoff.

Yet I agree that it's a perfect idea, for a get together with the boys is perhaps all we need to get them out of that space between us. To be just 'the girls' again, without all this childish politics and guessing games going behind our backs.

"That sounds good," I say, looking at my friends. "Let's go there."

I step forward and cross to where the guys are as soon as the pedestrian light turns green.

* * *

**Gale**

This is such a _freaking_ perfect Saturday. Really. Started with an impromptu get-together with Catnip and her friends Annie and Miss Mason at breakfast. Then, continued with some aimless walk along Pirrama Park(1) just so that Finnick and Annie could continue their _friendly_ chats and Peeta could discuss this grand plan with Miss Mason and Catnip - something about making a new product they can later use for some personal projects, I think. Was considering bailing out, but I couldn't. Not after that innocent-yet-somewhat-sensual gesture Miss Mason made during our breakfast.

I wish I hadn't been so adamant at staring at her, for now I've totally fallen into her trap.

She's in the unit now - _my _unit -, sitting with Peeta and my cousin Catnip at our dining table discussing this Video and News Streaming Page they're writing a proposal for. From my perch on the armchair, I can easily see her flailing her arms wildly as she describes her outlandish ideas to a politely chuckling Peeta and a totally bewildered Catnip. Way to go, Miss. At this rate, I'm going to get screwed by Finnick and Annie in this racing game.

"Man! Are you really driving there?!"

Thanks a lot, Finnick. You really help.

I turn to the screen and try hard to concentrate on this game, blocking out Miss Mason's brash voice and loud cackles. Heavens, Annie Cresta is a hell of a racer. She's owning our butts now - by a whole lot of points. If this is how she drives in real life, Finnick is such an unlucky bastard.

Or perhaps not, since he's pretty staunch about him and her just being _friends_. Well, let's just see how long the Sex God is going to be able to hold onto his vow of celibacy this time.

Some loud cheers from the speakers, and the race is over. Won by the one and only of Miss Annie Cresta, Finnick's secret love interest for the time being. He's high-five-ing her now, acting all like a friend while failing miserably. He might not realize this, but he's been reciting me and Peeta these drunk fantasies and musings about "Annie" since he first got drunk with us. I remember discussing with Peeta back when we were younger what this "Annie" actually was, for Finnick made her sound like a mixture of a goddess and an angel and _some other stuff boys like_. To tell the truth, I think the real Annie is way nicer than this imaginary girl I constructed in my mind based on Finnick's drunk musings.

Well, I guess I was the fool for believing in anything coming out of a drunken Finnick's mouth.

"Once more?" Annie offers, looking at me hopefully.

"I'll pass this time," I refuse, getting up for this place is getting _freaking _overwhelming. "Bit dizzy. I'll have a lie-down or something."

"Weak," Finnick comments jokingly. I ignore him and walk on to my room, for there's nothing else I'd rather do than having some quiet time with myself right now.

Or, having any time free from the sight of Johanna Mason, really.

**Johanna**

"Is your friend always this antisocial?"

Peeta chuckles at this, and shoots Finnick a look from his seat.

"Kind of," Finnick answers for them, whispering loudly as he looks over his shoulder towards Gorgeous Jerk's closed door. "He's kind of a loner."

"Pity," I respond in passing, concentrating on this slice of pizza I'm trying to pull out of the box - stringy cheese and all. "Look at what he's missed."

It's been perhaps four or five hours since we all last saw Gorgeous Jerk, who'd graciously disappeared into his room. Who knows what's in his mind, really, but I do hope he felt as frustrated as I did that day he stalked me all the way back home. I really hope it's all my doing, for it's been my intention all along.

Take it, Hawthorne.

"He's gonna get hungry soon," Peeta says, glancing at the digital clock. "He skipped lunch, and it's dinnertime now."

"Hope he is," I lightly comment, "I kinda miss him already."

Kat stomps at my foot at this point, shooting me a warning glare. I've made no attempt to hide from her that I was merely trolling. The looks on the boys' faces, though, show that they seem to really buy it. Looks like I'm indeed one hell of a convincing troll.

"Should we invite him to dinner?" Annie asks, kind and gracious as she usually is.

"He'll come out when he wants to," Finnick answers, smiling this lopsided grin of minor despair. "Don't wake the sleeping dragon, my Lady."

"Copycat," I call him out, pointing my greasy finger at him for he's truly just copying a line from a book.

"A sophisticated one, indeed," Finnick playfully replies, picking on yet another piece of topping on his slice of pizza. That's how he's been eating so far - leaving out the cheese and the dough, eating only the toppings. It amuses me, I must say, for I've never seen a guy so fussy about food and fat before I met him.

Kat, who's been silent in her typical way all long, chugs down her drink. She looks at all of us funny afterwards, humouring me to no end for she's actually the one being funny here.

"Some more drink?" Peeta offers her, lifting up the jug homemade Mellark lemonade to refill her cup.

"Umm... sure," she finally accepts, holding up her cup half-reluctantly. "It's good."

I nearly choke on my pizza then, for surely Kat's being _really _funny. All along, I've known that she's this little awkward thing; but she's been even more awkward than usual recently, especially when we're around Peeta Mellark and he's being his nice self like usual.

My little friend might be falling in love.

I grin to myself at that point - until something slid down my shirt and lodges itself in my bra. Damn pizza topping.

"Ugh, I have some tiny little problem here," I announce to the table, putting down my pizza as there's no way I can keep going with this damned thing in my bra. "Back soon!"

Their unit's a bit bigger than mine and Kat's, but it's still a unit and thus finding the bathroom isn't that hard. It's messy and sparse - typical of boys' bathroom - but it's pretty alright, I guess. I close the door and lift my shirt off so that I can fish the thing out, snorting along to myself as the situation is indeed a little funny. Seriously. Even pizza toppings have some sense of perversion in them.

My shirt's still pretty much up, when the door which I forgot to lock slams open behind me. With a frantic yelp, I turn around.

... only to stare right into the eyes of an equally mortified Gale Hawthorne, who's just walked in with a towel over his shoulder.

"FARK!"

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 Pirrama Park is a real park in Sydney, located right on the water in Pyrmont - the suburb everyone except Annie lived in here in the story.

* * *

Okay. That's chapter nine, everyone. Thanks for reading and being with me so far :).

Ten is yet to be written, but I do hope it'll make its appearance soon. I imagine we'll explore more about Peeta and Katniss's plan to propose a new product for their company from here on - for that's the main non-fluff plot of the story (aside of the three romance plots).

Till we meet again!


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: **Hello! Thanks for reading, and thanks for following and favouriting. Special thanks to De-BardatBoston and MellarkableSinger for the reviews. You guys all rock :).

Without further ado, this is chapter 10. It's rather fast-paced, for I realised it might not be a good idea to lay out much details of what's happening when you're prototyping at a software company (because all you do is designing then coding - on repeat). I'll slow down on next one, though, for it'll be rather emotional.

Hope you enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **THG and its characters belong to Suzanne Collins. Just borrowing here. Johanna's cousin is my O.C.. He won't have any spoken line here in the story, and will only be part of this chapter and the next :).

* * *

**Chapter 10**

**Katniss**

The sound of that familiar scream sends me jumping up my chair. I think I've dropped the pizza in my hands in the process, but I don't really care now. Jo's screaming. Jo's in danger. One of the few people I care about is in danger. I need to get there now.

Behind me, I can feel Annie and the boys following me, Peeta on the lead. I lead them to where the scream seems to come from; a room at the end of their corridor. Jo turns out not to be alone there, for there's Gale's familiar frame - half in and half out of the door.

"Gale?" I call my cousin, wishing he'd move over already for his tall frame really blocks my view. "What's happening?"

That seems to snap him out of a trance, for he steps back and turns around.

"Not much," he then says, looking at the wall on his right. "Your friend just forgot to lock the bathroom door when she's in."

He walks back to his room with that, leaving the four of us staring at Jo. She's frantically smoothing her shirt - for some reason I don't know - and there's this pink tinge on her face I've never seen before.

"Oh, hell," she finally snaps, at particularly no one but herself. I watch on, as she lifts her head and look at all of us, straight on our faces. "I think I've just accidentally flashed him."

Some kind of dreadful heat creeps up my face as the mental image of what happened begins forming in my head.

* * *

The gathering ended shortly after Jo and Gale's flashing incident, after which he kind of avoided looking her in the eyes for a couple of days.

Jo and I had Peeta in our place the next day, though, as we still needed to finish that proposal. Peeta made a point to use as much of my original proposal as possible. He and Jo added some twists, however, such as an advertising space and some advanced features you can unlock by paying, just to monetize the thing and make it more appealing to our Co-Chairmen.

Monday morning found Peeta approaching Boggs to arrange a meeting, which happened on Wednesday afternoon. That took us to today, which is Friday. Peeta and Boggs and our Engineering Site Lead Haymitch is currently having this Video-Call meeting with the Board today, in order to present the idea.

The day is really young - seven AM in the morning - but I'm here already on my desk, working on some bug fixes as I wait eagerly for the meeting to finish. I opted out of participating in it and let Peeta present our idea. Jo and I agreed that we should probably keep away from the thing, considering how much we hate Snow and Coin - and how much we can be bothered to hide it. Doesn't mean that I'm in any way less anxious and less excited than if I'd been there, though. I'm super excited right now - and super anxious.

The door of the meeting room they're using, which I can clearly see from my desk, swings open. I hold my breath in, stilling my fingers and fixing my eyes on it as they all exit the room. Haymitch, then Boggs, then Peeta, who smiles widely and gives me a thumbs-up behind Boggs and Haymitch's walking figures.

I have to turn away to the window at that point, for this familiar yet foreign tightening of my cheeks tells me I must be grinning like an idiot.

* * *

I haven't felt this excited in a while. Not since I was a kid, really. Got halfway as excited when that paper I wrote with Jo and Annie as part of our undergraduate honours project(1) finally got published, but that was the most excited I've been recently. I think I've even been convinced that it was the most excited I could ever be in my life - but, no. Today, I prove myself wrong.

I think I might be so excited I smile at Boggs and Haymitch this entire meeting, but I don't really care right now. My project gets approved. I'll get to do something I care about, for the causes I care about.

"So," Boggs explains, for Haymitch as usual can't be bothered speaking technicalities. "You've got allocation for one full time software engineer, one part-time infrastructure engineer, and one part-time PM at the moment. If it all goes well, you'll get more allowances, but that's all that you get for the time being. You think you can deliver(2) the prototype in three months?"

I eye Jo and Peeta, who flank me on my sides. It'll be us and us alone in this project - and me alone coding. It won't be an easy journey, but this is the only thing we can do at the moment. And I'm determined to make the thing happen. To make my pet project happen.

"Yes," I finally answer Boggs, planting my feet hard on the floor as I will myself to believe it. "I - _we_ - will deliver in three months."

**Peeta**

Katniss is on fire.

She's burning with energy and resolve, working day and night to make this new project happen. Taking her work laptop home, disappearing into her world of designing and coding every night and on weekends - according to Johanna, at least. Having more and more lunches at her desk, obsessed with her codes and design. I often watch her coding from my desk at work. She looks so... alive. Tired and frowning and somewhat stressed, but alive.

"Katniss," I come over to her one day, as I see her resting her head on her desk. "Go have a rest."

"No," she snaps at me, lifting her head. "I've got to get this done. There's no time."

Well, even the Girl on Fire has her limitations. I'm in my kitchen doing the dishes that night, when someone knocks on the front door frantically.

"Brainless's down with fever," Johanna blurts out at me, without even saying hi or looking at who actually opens the door. "I'm carting her over to RPA's(3) emergency now. She's been talking nonsense about giant butterflies and something called tracker jackers and me getting electrocuted and stuff like that."

I end up driving them there to the hospital in Johanna's car, and going through that long wait in the emergency department's waiting room with them. The young doctor who checks on Katniss owns it all up to a combination of fatigue and the flu, and suggests a week off work. She blatantly ignores it, and is back at work full force just two days after the hospital trip despite us begging her to just take a rest.

"At this rate, she's gonna drop dead soon," Johanna hisses at me that day in the lift, as we rush back up to the office from our short lunch to take some food for Katniss. "Grab us extra resources, Blondie. I'll rope in our friend Miss Crazy."

* * *

I bring up that topic at the dinner table later that night, as we boys sit down chomping on our meat-and-three-veg fares.

"I can help some," Finnick offers, almost straight away. "Maybe an hour or two every day, and several hours on weekends - anything, really, as long as it doesn't interrupt with my sleep."

I thank him for that offer, and turn to Gale, who takes his sweet time deciding.

"Well, count me in," he finally says, straight away going back to his food. "Tell Mason to behave, though, for I won't do it otherwise."

That's two additional engineers to the project. Part time - or even less than that - but still extra heads and hands to code. Mission accomplished - for tonight at least.

* * *

Fast forward two weeks from that night, and a coding routine has been established between all six of us.

Though initially pissed as that Johanna and I had roped in extra people into her big project, Katniss ends up loving all of us the same at the end. She now has some time to rest and take a breather and get away from work for a bit - something she hadn't been able to do since the project started. And slowly, really slowly, she's begun to trust Finnick and I, the way she trusts Gale and the girls.

I couldn't help but feeling a little over the moon as she greeted me first when I arrived at work a couple of days ago. For a while, everything just felt so... normal. Actually, everything is pretty much normal now. It still amuses me that it takes this project to get all of us to see eye to eye with each other, but, it happens.

I'm now sitting on the girls' dining table, frowning over some front-end code Annie and I worked on together, trying to find why the thing sometimes look wrong. Across from us, sit Katniss and Gale, deep in discussion about ways to handle conflicting updates on the web page. Johanna and Finnick sprawl on the floor in front of the coffee table, both frowning over this mess of lines and numbers and a laptop displaying the list of available machines all over the world. We're really sending this thing flying, together. It's chaotic, yet blissful in its own way.

"Anyone up for some feed?" Johanna says, standing up and stretching her arms above her head. Across from me, I see Gale tensing at this sight. He's been a bit funny around her lately, after the day of the flashing incident. I sort of don't blame him for that.

"Double cheeseburger please," Katniss snaps in, without even looking up from her screen. "And a large coke. And large chips(4). And a caramel sundae - if you know how to not make it melt."

Gale snorts and Finnick looks mortified. I find it hard not to smile myself, for that's surely a lot of food. A lot of junk food, to be more exact.

"No whiskas(5), cat-niss?" Johanna asks, sounding serious.

"Shut up and just buy me my food," Katniss snaps back, still without looking at Jo or any of us. She doesn't even care that everyone's practically laughing at that joke - Kat's food, cat food.

Johanna mutters something which sounds both treacherous and hilarious. I can't help but noticing Gale's funny reaction as he watches her walking to the coat-rack and grabbing her hoodie, putting it on arms-first-then-head. Winter's getting near, and the air's cooling down outside. I think today's a 19 degree celcius(6) day. Yet my Mate is getting all hot and bothered over a girl he supposedly hate. Hell. This is just damn ridiculous.

The room cools back down a bit as Jo leaves with our orders of junk food (and Finnick's salad, of course, for Finnick doesn't eat junk food). There's still some heat left, though, and I find myself pretending to purse my lips in concentration while all I want to do is to smile at Drill Sergeant and his uncharacteristic fidgeting. Looks like he'd actually rather be out walking there with her, but he just doesn't wanna admit.

"Hey front-enders," Finnick says - _purrs _- behind us. "Care if I see what you're doing?"

"Sure," I respond, though it's not actually necessary. Finnick's now bending above Annie. Hands outside hers on the table, lips so close to the top of her head.

I don't think I can buy his "just friends" argument anymore. Not when I know he's been fantasizing about her forever, and now, there's this whole lovey-doovey thing.

That loud snort from Drill Sergeant tells me that he's also noticed Finnick's silent declaration of love.

"Care about the back-end as well, Finn?" he then asks, looking amusedly at our Mate.

"Nah," Finnick answers somewhat absent-mindedly. "The front's better."

"Thought you love them both the same."

Damn. The dirty joke's out now.

"Gale!" Katniss protests at this, clearly understanding what's going on. "Stop being so gross!"

"Thought I can afford to be a guy when The Axe's not here," he responds carelessly, looking back down at whatever he was staring at before.

"She's right, Gale," Finnick chimes in, raising a brow. "Be respectful to the ladies."

"Says the Ladies' man."

I clear my throat at this, for I see Finnick going pale and the girls getting bewildered.

"Should we all take a break and play some game?" I ask them.

"Sounds good," Finnick immediately agrees, straightening his back - not without brushing his arms on Annie's though. "Wanna race or something?"

Of course he would suggest a racing game. Annie's a racing whizz.

Ten minutes later, I'm playing Toad on a Magikruiser on Mario Kart, racing Annie and the boys. Katniss didn't even bat an eyelid at the idea. She just kept working and working and working.

"You think Jo's Okay?" I hear Annie asking Katniss over her shoulders.

"She should be," Katniss answers, somewhat distractedly. "Harbourside(7)'s just five or so minutes away."

"It's been a while," Annie responds. "I hope she's not having an attack."

I know I shouldn't be nosy, really, but I find myself turning my head towards the girls at this. I've never known Johanna has a health problem.

"She's most probably okay," Katniss says, giving Annie this sharp yet uncomfortable look. The latter looks super-remorseful; seems like none of us boys is supposed to know about this thing.

"Is that the same thing I saw a couple of months ago?" Gale barges in, without even moving his eyes away from the screen.

"She's fine, Gale," Katniss repeats, sharp and harsh. "There's nothing wrong with her."

Yet Katniss is a terrible liar. She doesn't look quite convincing at all.

Luckily, Drill Sergeant is too busy looking at his screen, and Finnick knows not to ask questions about this. The topic just dies down a minute later, and we're back to racing.

... until the apartment's front door opens, and in barges a somewhat disoriented, shaking Johanna, with some plastic bags of food.

Looks like an 'attack' indeed happened.

* * *

"Some pervert stared at her boobs," I hear Katniss hissing to Annie in the kitchen, as I make my way there to put my plate down on the sink. "I don't know if he looks like one of _them_, but it freaked her out."

"Poor Jo," Annie comments. "She must be..."

Her voice trails off, as I deliberately make this loud exhale to make my presence known. As much as I care about Johanna and want to know what happened, I don't really want to snoop around on the girls when they're talking.

"Thanks, Peeta," Katniss says, upon realizing what I'm doing. "Just leave it there, we'll wash up later."

"Thanks."

With that, I do as asked and leave the kitchen, back to my Mates who are back to work in the living room - except, none of them seem to be working.

"Do you think she's Okay?" Finnick whispers, as soon as I plop back down on the couch.

"Most probably fine now," I answer, just so that he can stop wondering. "Katniss's out of her room."

And truly, Johanna is fine now. She comes out of her room not quite five minutes later, still a bit pale but looking as intense as usual.

"Don't look at me like that," she snaps at both Gale and Finnick, as they both stare at her. "I'm bloody fine."

They turn back to their laptops at that, giving her the alone time she deserves. I watch her secretly over my shoulder, fumbling with her phone while staring blankly at her laptop.

* * *

**Katniss**

The wedding e-invitation appears in my inbox the day after we send out our prototype for final review. I say a quick thank you prayer as I sit down and open it, for I know I wouldn't have been able to get around it in any way. Though we haven't been close since I moved here, Madge's still a person I consider a friend.

"Hey Brainless," Jo calls out at me from her perch on our couch. "You up for going back to Adelaide in two weeks?"

"Have to," I answer her, a bit absent-minded for my brain's still dazed from all those lines of code I'd been staring at these past few days. "My friend's getting married."

"Is your friend Margaret Undersee?"

Now, that's definitely a surprise.

"You're invited too?" I ask Jo.

"Yeah," Jo answers. "Your friend's marrying my cousin."

Now that she's mentioned it to me, it's only started dawning on me that Madge's fiance has Jo's surname. I kind of overlooked it to start with, for 'Mason' is a really common surname.

"I'm chatting with him on MockingChat now," Jo rambles on. She stands up and walks over to me with her laptop. "Was quite miffed he's only inviting me at the very last minute, but turns out they'd only started planning three weeks ago. She's knocked up."

"Shiz."

Yes, that's definitely another surprise. I've never imagined Madge would let anyone knock her up - or even let anyone touch her - before they're married. Her family's super-religious and super-proper.

Jo cackles. Looks like her cousin has just sent her some funny lines.

"He said her father was so close to strangling him!" she guffaws out once she's composed enough to speak. "Serves him right, I suppose."

"Jo," I warn her warily. "This is not so funny."

"Yeah, if you're them," Jo waves me off. "Not when you're an outsider like us. Anyway, when do you wanna leave?"

"Friday night after work, I think," I answer. "Coming back Sunday afternoon. That way, we're not gonna miss work."

She rolls her eyes. These past few weeks, she's been taunting me a lot for being workaholic. Clearly she's not buying this as well.

"Take the Friday off or something," she bosses me around, opening up a tab for flight searching on her browser. "You've gotta say hello to the Rundle Mall piggies(8)."

"If you wish," I finally relent, remembering I have two months worth of leave I've never used. "Not too long, though. They might approve the thing, and..."

"Coin? Snow? Approving our thing straight away?"

Jo looks at me at this. Slowly, I begin realising she's right. Knowing Coin and Snow, they'll most probably ignore our project until the very last minute. They don't really care about new ideas and stuff - only money, money, money.

"Anyway, I'll just take the Friday off," I seal the deal off, firm for that's how you do it with Jo. I might take some holiday later. Somewhere else. Not in Adelaide. I can't be there for too long. It'll be too painful. It was the place where I'd been happy, and where that happiness was taken away from me.

"Fine," Jo huffs, though judging the fact that she's jabbing in the correct date on the 'departure date' box, she's relenting to what I wish. "I'm gonna drag you there to the pigs though."

I just shrug for I don't care. Jo can drag me to the pigs ten times if she wants. It's not something I would strongly oppose.

"Hotel or your cousin's place?"

"You wanna crash Gale's Mum's place?"

"Not for both of us, Brainless," she grunts out, shaking her head. "Maybe I should make it a little bit easier for your simple mind. We can share a hotel room or something, or you can stay with Hawthorne's family and I can crash my cousin's pad. Which one do you prefer?"

Had it not been for my mother, it would've been a hard decision. But luckily she's mapped this all out nicely with her disappearance and that few months of bad memories she made me associate Aunt Hazelle's place with. This is thus easy.

"Hotel."

Jo lifts a brow, but doesn't dig further. Looks like she remembers my stories after all.

"Alright, hotel it is then," she says, opening yet another tab to book a hotel. "Now that I've thought about it, I can't actually stay with Ash. Hell, I haven't seen him in years."

* * *

And that's how we find ourselves here in Kingsford Smith(9) two weeks later, saying goodbye to Annie who's declined our invitation to tag along to Adelaide, for the sake of one Finnick Odair.

_"I've said yes to sailing with Finn," she told us on the phone, as we called her right before we really booked our flights. "Don't wanna bail out on him."_

I think I sulked for an hour or two after that, before Jo told me - not so gently - that it was Annie's godforsaken right to befriend Finnick Odair, and that I should just let them be.

And thus let them be I do, trying to ignore the fact that she's now always having lunch with him. Oh, and lets him take a bite of her burger whenever we're out together for junk food because he's too worried about his figure to buy his own.

"Got your reservation?"

"Yep," I say, as I pull out our printed-out reservation and hand it out to Gale. Yes, my cousin Gale. It's a bit funny that he said yes to Madge's invitation too, considering that they had this month-long-dating history as teenagers, but somehow it happens. Perhaps it's because Peeta is also going, having been invited by Madge's father who's a good friend of his parents. The Undersees have literally invited everyone they know.

Gale takes the thing and reads it. Some kind of smile breaks on his face, as he says, "her name's really Johanna _Axelle _Mason?"

"Well," I say to him, "where do you think 'axe' comes from?"

He looks a bit stunned, then starts grinning like an idiot.

"Makes sense," he finally mentions, turning away to jab the details in on the online check-in counter.

Looks like my cousin's in sugar high or something. Or somewhat enamoured by my best friend - though that's pretty much unlikely, considering that they keep calling each other names and making fun of eachother when the other's not around.

I look over my shoulder to that seat by the terminal's windows, where Jo and Peeta and Annie and _Finnick _are currently sitting, chatting animatedly about something. Having their happy goodbye. Oh well, I think this is a happy goodbye anyway, for we'll be seeing Annie and Finnick again on Monday.

"Don't burn the unit down!" Peeta playfully reminds Finnick, as the time finally comes for us to get moving into the terminal.

"Don't you worry, Sir," Finnick replays, winking. "I know how to put a fire out."

"Not in yourself," Gale mutters behind me, smirking. Next to us, Jo starts cackling. I don't know why it's funny, or what's the significance, but they agree with each other this once, and it does more good than harm.

Annie gives us hugs, and this is it. Time to board.

I don't know how a plane trip with Jo, Gale, and Peeta will turn out to be, but I'm crossing my fingers here that it'll be good.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 There's this concept of 'honours year' in Australian universities, in which you spend an extra year at the end of your degree doing research and writing a thesis. After you've done this - and done it well and made your supervisor happy - you would get this additional thing behind your degree called the "Honours". Think about , Hons (Bachelor of Science with honours).

2 'To deliver' in software companies means to have a working product.

3 RPA = Royal Prince Alfred hospital, one of the biggest public hospital in Sydney. Located close to the city, and close to where Katniss and Johanna lived in this story.

4 chips in this context is french fries, not the crisps.

5 cat food brand. I'm sure this exists outside Australia, but, just in case...

6 19 celcius = 66 fahrenheit (we use Celcius here in Australia)

7 The shopping centre in Darling Harbour.

8 My favourite thing to see when I visit Adelaide. Four bronze pig statues in the middle of a mall in the CBD, two of which are named "Horatio" and "Truffle".

9 Kingsford Smith is the name of the Sydney airport. It's named after aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

* * *

Thanks for reading everyone! Next up: fluff. Hasn't been written yet, but has been outlined. Fingers crossed I'll get it out by Friday...


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: **Hello! Thanks for reading, following, and favouriting everyone. Special thanks to De-BardatBoston and Ryden20 for their reviews. You guys all rock :).

Without further ado, here's chapter 11. Some sticky situations await here, but that only means that romances are developing ;), Anyway, enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **THG trilogy and its characters belong to Suzanne Collins. Just borrowing here. Oh, and in case you recognize the trilogy Posy is obsessed with in this chapter, it was also Suzanne Collins' ;).

* * *

**Chapter 11**

**Finnick**

I've never thought I'll ever have dinner with the Crestas again, but it happens.

I was just being a gentleman and driving Annie back home, really. Wasn't expecting her parents to see me at all, but hell, they did. They were sitting on their front porch doing something when I pulled over in front of their fences.

It also didn't help at all that my grandmother's van that I'm borrowing for the day has these clear windows, which we've left open for some fresh air. As soon as we stopped, I was in Annie's parents' full view. And there was simply no way to just keep driving, for by some kind of miracle they still recognized me.

I'm now sitting at the spot on the table where I know Mark would've been if only he was still alive, next to Annie and across from her other brothers Max and Mike. It feels downright weird, being among them again like the extra son I'd always been back then, but it's really sweet somehow. Thinking about it now, the Crestas was the family I had growing up. Sure, I had my parents and Mags, but my parents were always too busy and Mags didn't always have me every day. I think I actually spent close to half of my childhood with these people.

"So," Max, Annie's intense, dominant oldest brother says, "are you two going out now?"

"Uhm, we..."

"Nah," Annie cuts in with a smile, "just friends."

Lord. This girl can't seriously be more perfect than she already is now.

"I see," Max drops the subject. I have a feeling that it's only for the time being now - him, Mike, and their parents, they all have this 'knowing' looks on their faces.

"Where are you guys going this Saturday, again?" Mike then asks, this friendly yet impish tone in his voice.

Damn.

* * *

I survived the dinner, thankfully. Not the little sailing session I had with Annie the next day - at least, not yet. The sailing's over and done, and Annie is happy as a clam now, but it's not the end of it. Yet.

I'm now strapped in tight on Annie's little car's passenger seat, as she drives us to her parents' cafe. Dreading both her parents and the calories, as apparently her Mum has made my favourite dessert and is expecting me to come over there. Said she's missed me a lot and things like that, though I suspect it's something else. The looks she's been giving me last night, and Johanna and Katniss's break-time-tale of her trying to matchmake them with Mike, tells me that she just wants one of her kids to eventually get married. Max and his partner just won't get married somehow, and Mike's had maybe a hundred or so failed relationships - that's what Annie said anyway, when I asked her about them a couple of weeks ago. She's surely putting a lot of high hopes on Annie.

My phone beeps. I pull it out, just to read a text from Gale.

"_1000 ish people here. INSANE."_

I chuckle, as I imagine him in some kind of suit, sitting on a table in the sea of 1000 people, in the wedding of this girl he'd dated in High School who's apparently also a family friend of some sort. Way to go for Gale, who's apparently already had a hell-ish day dodging questions and nagging from his family yesterday, with no one to rescue him. Peeta was happily baking with his own family, and the girls were spending their time at the zoo and the mall.

"The boys?" Annie asks, stopping her happy humming for a while.

"Gale," I answer her, as I jab in my reply. "Apparently the wedding freaks him out."

"_That could have been you on the bridal table, Dude."_

Send. Let's see what Gale will have to say.

"I wonder how the girls are," Annie says to me. I look up and see that bit of worry on her face - she always cares about her girls, a lot. "Could you check my phone to see if they texted?"

I can't really believe what I've just heard. But then, this is Annie. I should've expected her to trust me this much. Man, she scares me now. I'm dead scared of hurting or disappointing her.

"Sure," I finally agree, as it dawns on me that not knowing how Johanna and Katniss are will kind of hurt her. Her phone's currently docked on its little dock near the radio. I pick it up and unlock the screen. True to prediction, there are some texts - from Johanna and Katniss, both.

"_Seated with my cousins and their toyboys and their kids. Fun." _ - that's Johanna.

"_Gale's little sister wants to do front end dev. You should talk to her one day._" - that's Katniss.

"_Bride looks like a gem. Wonder what my scoundrel cousin did to serenade her._" - Johanna.

"_Just heard the groom's speech. Looks like all of them Masons are indeed crass._" - Katniss.

"_This gourmet food is starting to irritate me. I'm still starving after dessert._" - Johanna.

"_Getting dragged to the dance floor by my little cousin. HELP." _- Katniss.

I read them out to Annie, who chuckles with each text and finally has to pull over at Centennial Park(1) because she just can't concentrate.

"Poor Jo and Kat," she says, laughing so sweetly and freely, as she twists her body towards me. "I hope I won't have to have a typical Cresta wedding, or I'll really kill them both."

I laugh alongside her. I've been to a Cresta wedding twice when I was a teenager, and now that I think about it, it's pretty similar to this wedding our friends are currently at. A thousand guests, cousins, rowdy speeches, gourmet food which leaves you hungry, and lots of dancing.

"Perhaps we'll just elope?"

She just looks at me and blinks.

All the blood drains from my face, as it slowly dawns on me what I've just said.

"Annie..."

I can't do it. I can't say anything to her. I don't know what to say.

"You like me?"

She says that in the most heartbreaking of ways, in this way which is neither hopeful nor playful, nor it is inquisitive. She just needs to know.

"Ann..."

I don't get to finish that, as my impulse takes over. Before I know, I'm kissing her.

... and she's kissing me back.

Lord. We're crossing the line.

* * *

**Gale**

That bastard Finnick stopped replying to my texts after just one. Oh, well.

"Stop being so antisocial, Gale," Posy berates me, giving me that scary look she's inherited from Mum. "Talk to us. Your girlfriend can wait."

I snort, as the mental image of Finnick being my girlfriend - or boyfriend in that matter - is just too funny. We would definitely not last longer than a week. Not with all the mess he causes, and all his fat-fearing ways.

"What does she look like?" Vick asks, elbowing me. At twenty years old, there're very few things he cares about, seemingly - and one of those is getting laid.

"There's no girlfriend," I answer him, as I eye my suddenly hopeful Mum. "It's that friend of mine Finnick, who's currently head over heels for one of Catnip's friends."

"The one we dropped at the hotel on Thursday?" Rory barges in, eyeing the candy buffet - where Miss Mason and Catnip currently are.

"Another one," I straighten him up there. "That one is... kind of undateable."

"Ooh," Rory digs in, smiling mischievously. "So you like that one."

"Nah," I straighten him up - _no, _I lie to him. I think I'm attracted to Miss Mason, for whatever reason there is. I just don't think we can date, those clashes and all.

"The girl who was going to be here as well?" Vick asks, excited and curious. Damn my little brothers and their no-secret-spared policy.

"Yeah," Rory responds. "See that one over there? The one with Kat on the candy buffet? That's the girl."

Vick's eyes immediately dart towards the buffet. And widen - just like those few times earlier, when those somewhat-attractive girls walk past our table.

"She's freaking hot!" he then exclaims, rather loudly that Mum shoots him that warning, embarrassed look. It's kind of too late, now, for Posy's neck is now also craned over for a close look to Miss Mason.

"She's pretty," my little sister then comments, winking at me.

Mum still doesn't say anything, but the way she's turning her head and squinting - damn, she's looking at Miss Mason too. My entire family's now obsessed with her.

I pretend to be really interested on my dessert as my brothers and sister start prattling on about what kind of woman they want as a sister-in-law. Seriously. Even the kids are ganging up to get me nowadays.

"That's Kat coming back," Vick comments, all of a sudden. "I'll take her to the dance floor in case I can bait some."

I sigh, though I don't stop him either.

Rory joins not long after, and so does Posy. And so do I, as my little sister drags me and I have no heart to say no to her. It's crazy how much this place's turning into a nightclub, at four in the afternoon - it was a lunch reception - with the music, the dancing, and all these strangers grinding around me. A minute in, I've had enough, and am in the process of finding Posy who's disappeared to dance with God-knows-who. There's no way I'm letting my sister participating in this rowdiness. Not when she's underage.

Slipping in between dancing bodies sound like a stupid and awkward idea, so I shift to the outer edge of the dance floor and decide to go from there. It kind of helps that I can see past most of them mad dancers, I guess. There must be a hundred of them in there, and I don't think I'll be able to find my sister otherwise.

I've just reached an edge of the floor, and am turning to walk around another side, when a sight catches my eyes.

Someone's groping Miss Mason.

I don't know what comes over me, but I barge in through the crowd to her aid.

"Dude," I warn the guy - the _old _guy. "I saw what you were doing."

That seems to stop the commotion around the spot. From the corner of my eyes, I can see a circle forming around us - a circle of bewildered people to be more exact.

The sleazeball just challenges me with his eyes, as if demanding what right I have to intervene. I'm still ransacking my brain trying to find a good reason, when suddenly someone grabs me on the arm. Miss Mason - _Johanna _-, shaking and pale, hanging on to me for dear life or whatever reason there is.

"She's with me," I finally deadpan, just to drive the crowd and the sleaze away from us. Judging what happened those few times I've seen her _like this_, we're gonna go somewhere where she can sit down now. She won't last much longer standing.

I take her out of the dance floor and out of the room as soon as they all get back to their dancing business.

* * *

It was really lucky that I've made that quick decision, for Johanna ends up melting down once we're seated on a bench outside. I feel pretty much awkward doing it, but I let her hold on to my arms. All that attraction and our somewhat-friendship, I can't just leave her alone here.

"I'll take you back to your hotel," I tell her once she's calmed down and somewhat lucid again. "You have your key, right?"

She just nods quietly, looking distant and downright humiliated for some reasons I'm yet to found.

I hail a cab to take us back down to the city since we're now in the Entertainment Centre(2) complex a bit up north. She sobs her whole way back there - I swear the cab driver's watching us from his rearview mirror for some kind of free entertainment or murder-clues - , but I don't really give a damn. My mission's to get her back to the hotel. Not to tell her not to cry, because, hell, I don't think I have the right to. Not when I don't know what happened to her.

I take her to her floor and wait until she disappears safely into her room, before shooting Catnip and my family texts and heading off the city. I don't think I can go back to that wedding again. Not when all I want to do is to sit with Johanna there in her hotel room as she cries, though I know I can't.

I think I'd better go home and sleep.

* * *

I did go home and try to sleep, though I didn't get lucky.

As the sky darkens outside and the evening news programs start playing, I start wishing I'd actually done that and stayed with her. Catnip's there, of course - she'd rushed back upon receiving my text and sent me another one once she arrived - but, still, I want to be there.

I need to know what happened to her.

Some loud conversations, and the front door creaks open. Mum and the kids are back from the wedding. And from some grocery shopping, judging those green bags(3) in the kids' hands.

"You didn't miss much," Posy tells me, without being prompted. "It's all dancing, dancing, and dancing from then on."

_Crap. _I totally forgot that my sister was still on the dance floor.

"Did you stay on the dance floor?" I ask her, as the guilt creeps up on me.

"No," she answers. "Kat pulled me out of there. Apparently her friend got groped or something like that."

"She was," I confirm, for it's true. I can feel my tense shoulders relaxing; my cousin was looking after my sister, after all. "There was this sleazy guy who was probably drunk or something."

"Ew," Posy says in disgust. It doesn't capture her interest long, though, for a second later she's back on her feet and into her room - most probably getting online on MockingNet or browsing that fanfiction site she likes. She's been obsessed with this dystopian trilogy in which a sixteen year old had the _hard_ problem of choosing between her best friend and another boy whom she actually loved - or at least that's what the thing is about, according to Posy. I don't know much about it, except that apparently it touched issues like forced prostitution and race segregation and prisoners of war and a whole myriad of grown-up problems like that. Teenage literatures nowadays.

The door creaks open once more. It's Rory this time, carrying a bunch of random stuff. Looks like he's finally cleared his car off the junk he's accumulated there.

"Does this belong to one of your friends from Thursday night?" he asks me, holding out this red moleskin diary.

"Probably," I take it from him, inspecting it for any outer markings of names. I can possibly be Catnip's or Johanna's. Rory did take all of us in his car - Peeta included - down the Sir Don Bradman drive(4) to CBD from the airport on Thursday night.

"I think it's either Kat's or her friend's," Rory says in passing, as he dumps the rest of the stuff in his hands on the dining table to sort them out. "I haven't taken any girls in that car since I last cleaned it."

"I'll tell them to check their stuff," I tell him, for there's nothing else I can do. The diary doesn't have an outer marking. "I..."

I trail off at that, as I realize it does have some marking on the very first page behind the cover.

"_Johanna's Diary of Powerlessness_"

I read the thing that night, when everyone else is asleep, for I can't contain my curiosity.

* * *

**Katniss**

Jo and I spent our Saturday night in the hotel room, as she tried to calm down and I retreated to my comfortable cocoon of solace while looking after her.

She had a nightmare around midnight, though, and apparently had left that little book she wrote everything in at home. That left her tired and out of her game for Sunday. Which meant, I would be traversing the city alone today.

_"I've texted Peeta, and he said he's around," she told me from her bed this morning, sounding tired but still fierce like usual. "He'll be picking you up in an hour."_

Whatever this little thing Jo was planning, I was actually glad when Peeta showed up. I didn't think I could spend my entire day in the hotel room with nothing to do without going insane.

It felt date-ish and awkward to me to start with, but soon, I've grown accustomed to walking next to him while he babbled on about everything which crossed his mind. We took that tram to Glenelg(5) and back at his suggestion, just to be touristy. In a next weird movement, we spent the next two hours or so walking around the University of Adelaide. There was this unexplainable chill down my spine, as I passed that one building where we've had the Programming Competition before. The place where he'd given me a cheese bun. We're coming back there today.

_"Cheese bun," I deadpanned at him, for he looked straight confused of why I'm standing still. "You gave me a cheese bun here when we were sixteen."_

That's how exactly we end up here, actually. At his family bakery, sitting with him on some stools in the kitchen. He laughed at my sentence - in such an _adorable _way I think I might have blushed - and offered to take me here to have more cheese bun. And that's what I'm having now. Mellark cheese bun, fresh from the oven.

"Are you coming back tonight with Peet?" his older brother, Bran, asks.

"Yep," I answer him. Now, this is weird; I don't usually trust people this easily, but today I'm happy enough to just let randoms in. "Work tomorrow."

Bran just nods and proceeds to continue working. Of all the Mellark boys - their father included - Peeta is the only one who can hold conversations and talk about anything, apparently.

"Is Mum awake?" I hear Peeta asks his brother.

"Looks like it," Bran answers. He looks strained and tensed. I wonder if there's something wrong with their Mum. Perhaps she's ill. Or she's mean.

"I'll go check on her," Peeta says, standing up.

"Don't," Bran whispers back. "She wasn't feeling great this morning. _They _might still be there."

Something is really off with their mother.

Peeta seems to agree with his brother's judgement, for he plops back down on his seat and proceeds to talk our heads off again. All these crazy guesses I've formed about their mother evaporate into the thin air, though, as the woman herself walks in to the kitchen a couple of minutes later.

"Hello, boys!" she greets them cheerfully - though somehow I heard sadness there in her voice too. "I see that you have a friend here. Have I met you before?"

"I don't believe so," I say, as I stand up and offer my hand for the sake of politeness. "I'm Kat. Peeta's workmate."

Mrs. Mellark shakes my hand without hesitation and smiles. She looks a little bit like Peeta when she smiles like that. Kind and unassuming.

"Milly," she then introduces herself. "Hope he's not giving you troubles."

"He's been nice," I respond, eyeing Peeta who just smiles and shrugs like any other son would. "A little bit too nice, sometimes."

"He is," Bran barges in, chuckling. Their mother chuckles too - looks like Peeta is indeed too nice, and everyone knows it.

Milly Mellark then settles down on the stool next to Peeta's. It's then that this whole tension-and-caution takes over again. Bran immediately stops working and sits on her other side. And Peeta just tilts his body at her, as if anticipating something.

"It's okay, boys," she says, smiling at them thankfully yet sadly. "The voices are gone. I'll go back upstairs when they start again."

_Voices_.

Schizophrenia.

"Mum," Bran pleads, giving me this quick look from where he sits. "Don't say that."

"That's the truth," she responds to him, pulling him for a quick hug - as if he's the one who needs it and not her. "I hear voices. Stop being too nice."

"Well," Peeta then barges in, this strain in his cheerful-sounding voice. "What are you gonna make today, then?"

* * *

Two or so hours later, we're leaving the Mellark bakery, with Peeta's luggage and these bags of Milly Mellark's spiced pumpkin cookies. Apparently a childhood favourite of Peeta's or something, made especially for him because he's in town.

"I don't know your Mum is... _ill_," I decide to say to him, after a few minutes of somber silence. "Sorry about that."

"Sucks more for her than for me," he rebukes, with his gentle smile which now breaks my heart a bit. I don't understand this new friend of mine, really. How can he be so kind and forgiving, when life's unfair?

"She's not always like that," he continues, probably because that question is evident in my face. "She used to be... fine, when I was little. It all started when I was in high school. And she's still herself. It's the voices, not her."

With a tightened heart, I give him a quick one-armed hug and look down at my shoes. I can't help but thinking of my own mother, now that I've heard Peeta's story. Was she too hearing voices? What difference could I have made, just be being like... like Peeta and his brothers and his father?

"She'll be okay," Peeta consoles me. I want to tell him that he should take care of himself, but I can't. There's this sadness I feel for this new friend of mine, which stops me from speaking. "She has Dad. And my brothers - though they're busy with their wives these days."

He laughs at that, and I force myself to laugh along. Always awkward, always clueless, Katniss Everdeen.

* * *

A stop in the hotel to get Jo and my bags, a taxi ride, a meeting with Gale in the check-in counter, and some standard procedures later, we're walking around aimlessly in the terminal. Thirty more minutes to boarding. Plenty of time to kill, in this small-ish terminal.

"You want hot chocolate?" Peeta offers me.

"Pretty full," I deny, for honestly I don't need that.

He then eyes something at the background, and suddenly I get the clue. It looks like Gale and Jo are finally _talking_, as in civilly talking and not just snapping at each other for no good reason.

"But I can fit that, I guess," I add on. It comes out pathetic, but oh well, not that Jo and Gale are paying attention anyway. Together, we make our little way to a cafe and order our things.

"Where do you wanna sit?" Peeta asks.

I scan the cafe for empty spots - which are plenty, actually.

"There," I point at a secluded corner. My go-to spot in restaurants and cafes, whenever possible. "Nice and quiet."

And so that's where we head, once we've got our paper cups of hot chocolate. It's only when we're seated and I'm sipping on this mediocre-tasting hot chocolate it occurs to me that this might be what a date feels like. And looks like, too, for outsiders - judging the way Jo and Gale are cocking their heads at us in the distance.

"Umm... perhaps we should go somewhere more public," I tell Peeta, as I gather my stuff. "This looks like..."

"Let them think what they think, Katniss," he cuts me in, still with his smile. "We know it's not a date, and that's all that's important."

* * *

The flight went without a hitch, and so did the cab ride back home. We did pool a cab between the four of us, for we live across from each other it'd be silly to go separate, but I think we were all too conked out to make mess by the time we got to the front of the cab queue.

The night too went without a hitch, and I'm in the office bright-eyed and bushy-tailed early on Monday morning. I've got more emails than usual piled up in my inbox, after that one Friday off, and I've got to clear them off before the day starts.

"BRAINLESS!"

I swivel around towards the source of the noise, for it's unusual for Jo to visit me on my work area. And even more unusual for her to squeal like a little excited girl. Well, she's being unusual in general - all giddy and amped up, even with those circles around her eyes which make her look like those two pandas that we saw in Adelaide zoo on Friday.

"What?" I ask her, frowning.

"CHECK YOUR BLOODY EMAIL!"

"Doing that now," I respond to her warily, swivelling back for she's now right on my tail staring at my screen. "Which on...?"

I don't finish that question. There it is, near the top of the screen. From the Board of Directors.

"Jo," I ask my friend, suddenly feeling disheartened to open it. "Yes or no?"

"Read it for yourself, you wuss," Jo chides me. It only then it dawns on me that this must be a 'yes', for otherwise Jo would've gone on a crazy rampage.

"Yes?" I ask her, feeling this rush of excitement like no other.

"OF COURSE IT'S BLOODY YES, BRAINLESS!"

She pulls me up on my feet, and together, we start this little victory dance. I'm happy. Just happy. My dream has just come true.

It's not until half an hour later, when I'm all danced off and Jo's back on her desk to answer some pages, that it dawns on me that Coin and Snow are only giving us _three more months_ to finish the real thing. And no allocated fund for extra team members, aside of the six of us.

I curse at them, before gearing up and start working again.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 Centennial Park is a big park in Sydney Eastern suburb. It's a big one, with lots of greens areas and roads going through it so that you can drive your car inside it.

2 Adelaide Entertainment Centre does exist. It's located in Hindmarsh, which is a little bit north of Adelaide CBD. It's one of those wedding venues big enough to hold 1000 people seated.

3 In some Australian supermarkets, we have these reusable green canvas bags you can buy for 1 dollar or so to use as a substitute for the plastic bags.

4 Main road from Adelaide airport to Adelaide CBD. Named after an Australian cricket legend.

5 A beach south of Adelaide CBD. Major tourist attraction.

* * *

Okay. Thanks for reading everyone. I still have to write chapter 12 (it's still in this four-dot-points format now, waiting to be properly written), so I hope I'll finish it by weekend. Till then, stay gold! :)


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: **Hello! Thanks for reading, and thanks for following and favouriting. Special thanks to De-BardatBoston for the review. You guys all rock :)

Okay, so here's Chapter 12. Developments of couples here, lots of dialogues. Oh, and also, some part of Johanna's past people have been wondering about. Hope you enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own THG and its characters. They're all properties of Suzanne Collins.

* * *

**Chapter 12**

**Peeta**

MockingStream.

This is what we're called now. "The guys from MockingStream" - or, as Johanna has always corrected with this snappy, dangerous voice, "The guys and girls from MockingStream".

Haymitch assigned us a little sitting area at the corner, right next to the Sales team - the only available area in the office as of now. The nook isn't quite big enough for six desks, so the six of us were squeezed onto four desks, two on each side of the aisle. On the East side, Katniss and Gale and I. On the West side, Finnick and Johanna and Annie. Not an ideal situation, really, but it does the job. Our only complaint is that the area is dead noisy, with all those loud phone calls the Sales team makes daily from nine to five.

Days soon blurs into weeks, and before we know, we've used up half of the time given to us. The whole scaffolding of the project is now up and perhaps seventy percent running. There are still features to do and improvements to make, but at this rate I think we can still deliver. Not everyone agrees with me, though. Of all the five others, only Annie is a hundred percent sure we can deliver in time. Finnick says he's on eighty five percent now, Johanna slightly lower on seventy one percent, and the other two - a mere fifty. I don't really know what they're afraid of, really. If anything, Katniss has been working the hardest of us all; Gale a close second behind her.

Today is Saturday. And yet I find myself in the lift of our office building in my winter gear, with paper bags of food in my hands. Katniss and Gale are in for a weekend coding session, and Johanna has tagged along for the sake of solidarity. It's two thirty PM now, and according to Johanna, none of them has had anything since the morning. She texted me an hour ago for some help doing food run, as she was too busy making sure that Katniss didn't implode under the stress. And that Gale would pick a fight with _her_ instead whenever he went crazy, just so that he didn't disturb Katniss.

I chuckled on my phone when I heard her reasoning, for I remembered Katniss moaning to me one day that having Johanna around was like having an older sister who hated you. Well, Johanna is truly - and unwittingly - her older sister, in some sense.

"Got what I asked for?" Johanna pins me, as soon as I reach our meeting point at the reception.

"Yup," I answer her, lifting up the Maccas(1) brown bag I'm carrying in my right hand. Apparently that's all Katniss eats whenever she's coding and under stress.

"Clever boy," Johanna says, a satisfied grin on her face. "Now, let's hope the cousins haven't killed each other when I'm away."

They haven't, actually, for they're currently slouched in front of their monitors, each with noise-cancelling earphones on. From where I stand behind them, I can see both of them typing nonsensical, fully-bugged-out code into their IDE's text editors(2). They're truly getting delirious.

"Johanna," I quietly beckon our friend, who's now sitting on her own desk gulping on her Chatime(3). "Come here."

She puts her drink down and gets up to stride towards me, tentative yet interested. I step aside and let her stand where I stood before, in full view of both Katniss's and Drill Sergeant's monitors.

"Oh, hell," she hisses. Before I can guess what she'll do next, she's grabbed their shoulders and forcefully turn them towards her.

"These off!" she commandeers, yanking off their headphones. "You two are going freaking insane!"

"What do you mean?" they ask in unison, in this same annoyed voice.

"One by one," Johanna snaps. She then turns to Gale, and points out a line of code on his monitor. "This is out of bound(4), Hawthorne. You can't just take it from there. You'll be in a lot of pain later."

From where I stand, I can see Gale squinting for a second, before a look of realization and horror graces his face.

"Crap," he mutters, frantically changing his code. "Crap, crap."

Johanna just rolls her eyes and ignores him. She then turns to Katniss, who's still giving her this what-the-hell look.

"And you, Brainless," she continues, jabbing her finger on Katniss's monitor. "That's the wrong one you executed(5). Really. Look at it."

Katniss gives her monitor a squint, before calmly fixing her mistake and giving Johanna that "thank you" glance.

"Well," I barge in, for it's apparent to me that Johanna's not going to get them to stop. "Let's have a bit of a rest, shan't we?"

No response. I've started toying with that idea of just hooking them both on drips, when Katniss finally lets out a sigh and locks her screen.

"Guess so," she says, defeated yet somewhat thankful. "Wanna go outside to the water?"

I guess that's one of Sydney's blessings, really. It doesn't snow here, and that means you can still be outside in winter - it'll just be a little nippy.

I take that offer and head down there with her and our food, leaving Johanna to deal with a petulant, insistent Drill Sergeant. The short walk to the water passes in relative silence, as Katniss occupies herself pressing her fist against her forehead. She's fully drained.

"Thanks for getting the food," she says, once we're settled at a grassy spot near the water - far away from most others, just to avoid those flocks of hungry, impatient, impolite Seagulls(6). "It's your day off, you know. You don't need to."

"But it's your day off too," I gently remind her, as I take a bite of my own food. "Don't go too hard on yourself, Katniss. Everyone else's not working today."

"Jo and Gale were both in," she disagrees, giving me this mixture of a scowl and a smile.

"But you know they're both... eccentric," I give her the best reason I can think about without bashing our friends.

"Just say nutcases," she snaps in, playfully sticking out a tongue at me. "You don't have to always be so nice."

I chuckle at this, for she's guessed the exact word I've wanted to use. Looks like she's started getting me, too, as a friend and not just a workmate, after all these lunches, dinners, and late-night-and-early-morning coding sessions in the office.

"You reckon we're really doing Okay?" she asks me, once we finish our meals.

"No doubt here," I answer her in all my honesty. "If you keep working like this, we'll finish two weeks early."

"No we won't," she laughs out, sounding skeptical but somewhat jovial.

"We will," I insist this time. I pull out my phone to show her a quick calculation I've done on it a few days ago. If we work Katniss and Gale weekends, we'll shave off our estimated time by nine to ten days roughly.

"That's great!" she beams, looking at me. "If we do that, we'll be able to add one of those features we've marked 'for later'!"

Heavens. Katniss's really on fire.

"For later is for later," I tell her with my sternest voice. "Product Management decision, Everdeen. Engineers need not intervene."

Her face falls a bit, and there's this eyeroll too, but her body language doesn't really change. She's pissed, but she's not going to give me the silent treatment again.

"You gonna come back to the office with me?" she asks a few second later, getting up.

"No," I answer her, half-playfully and half-sternly. "I'm gonna take you to your home."

"Peeta," she sighs out, looking annoyed. "I don't wanna go home."

"Even when you've executed the wrong one?"

Now, this must have humoured her in some sense, for I can see a ghost of a smile in her eyes.

"I'll just go finishing what I was doing," she then said, still insistent even though it looked like my words did get to her.

"Then I'll come with you," I tell her.

She nods and extends a hand, beckoning me to get up. I relent and take her hand. It doesn't feel like anything, to be honest. It's just a friend helping a friend getting up. Yet her face and demeanour change, and I know that must have felt like something else for her - in a rather bad way.

"Let's go?" she asks a few seconds later, her eyes looking somewhere in the distance instead.

"Sure," I respond. There's no better response, for it was just a moment between friends. Even when it makes her all weird, I should act like the friend I am. I know she'll get used to it with time - just like what she's proven me so far.

* * *

**Annie**

My bed surely feels softer and bigger than usual.

Well... perhaps because it's not my bed, and this is not my room. It's not even my house - my parents' house, as Jo likes to rub it in.

I am in Finnick's room in the boys' apartment.

And I wasn't meant to fall asleep.

I open my eyes and sit up - no, _jolt _up - as I hear some familiar jibes outside. Peeta and Gale are both home now. And, judging that one other voice, Jo's somehow here too.

"Finn," I whisper, turning to my right side - where I remember he has been before I fell asleep. "They..."

I don't finish that, for there is no Finn. There's this little note on this heart-shaped post-it, though, on the pillow. I pick it up and read it, feeling more and more guilty towards my friends outside the room as the situation sinks in further.

'_Going for a swim downstairs. Come join me when you're up. F._'

I let out a soft sigh and stash the note in my shirt's pocket. There's no way I can join Finn down there now. I'll have to talk to our friends, first and foremost. And Jo and Gale won't let me go away so easily with all of these.

Finn and I haven't yet come out to our friends. Actually, no, we're not planning to come out at all - at least verbally. We'll just stay quiet and do the things we do, until they realise what's happening.

So far, none of them has realised that we're a couple. Or at least, none of them has told me or Finn that they realised we're a couple. Perhaps because we never really do things in public, out of fear of getting busted by people from the office. Or, perhaps, because Kat and Gale are too hell-bent on chasing the deadline, and Jo and Peeta are too busy fussing over them.

Looks like we'll have to come out, at the end.

I get up and straighten my long shirt. It's a little crumpled from the sleep, but judging what it looks like to me on the wardrobe mirror, it looks presentable. My hair's a bit mussed up; I comb it with my finger to make it straight. Done. I'm ready to face my friends and the world.

I open the door and slip out into the living room. There they are. Sitting on the dining table, conversing about current Australian Politics. They don't even hear me coming out, or turn their heads my direction.

... or so I initially thought. Jo gives me this wink as she pretends to twist her stiff back. Her eyes motion me to come there and join them, and I nod for that's what I'm gonna do anyway.

"Hey guys."

Three heads turn to me at this, including Jo's. It's quite funny that Jo even looks more surprised than the boys in her pretense - she's truly _the_ actress.

"Oh, hey Annie," Peeta, the most social of the three, quickly recovers. "Tea?"

"Sure," I accept, as I slide down on the only empty chair on the table - the one across from Jo, next to Peeta. "Will need that for the drive back home."

I'm not lying. I will really need the tea. The day's been emotional and long and exhausted. Today, I took Finn to Rookwood to see Mark at his final resting place. It was the first time Finn has ever been there - and it just got really emotional. I took him to Harris Park afterwards to do the little spicy food ritual I usually have with the girls, but the thing didn't quite work on him. He was still sad afterwards. That was why we took the nap - and I guess that was why he went for a swim when I was still asleep. Finn still needs to forget.

"Didn't see you when I walked in," Jo barges, kicking me secretly under the table. "Have you been hiding under the couch?"

"Nah," I tell her, kicking her back under the table. "Was in Finn's room sleeping."

"_Sleeping?_" Jo asks again, this time in unison with Gale, who suddenly perks up.

"Yep," I answer them, firm and without hesitation. I know what they're trying to insinuate, those _naughty _kids. "Took a nap. On his bed."

"That bastard," Gale mutters, a small smile on his lips. I watch him as he twists around and starts yelling,

"Hey Finnick! Come out here you arsehole! You hiding there?"

"He's not here, actually," I answer it for Finn, chuckling a bit because the boys can be really funny when they want to be. "He's down for a swim."

"Ooh," Jo chastises, grinning like a cheshire Kat - umm, no, cheshire cat. "Why haven't you join him for a skinny dip, my sweet Annie?"

"Well, he left before I woke up," I say. "And I don't do skinny dips, really."

I giggle a bit at this, for a funny mental image slips into my brain. I don't really understand why would someone swim naked in public, under the watchful eyes of people who might not deserve to see it all.

"Why don't you join him for a skinny dip, Johanna?" Gale nudges her playfully.

Oh, no. This is going to get really ugly.

I eye Peeta, who eyes me back. Looks like he's got a somewhat similar thought in there; that yet another 'misogynist-versus-feminist' fight will occur.

But then, Jo just laughs it out, and retorts, "No. Finnick's quite attractive, but, no. I'm not gonna backstab our little friend Annie here. Besides, I'd rather skinny dip with this other guy I like."

We all laugh at this, though I notice that Gale's laughter sounds a bit strained. Perhaps, the revenge is still yet to come.

"Where's Kat?" I try diverting the attention, once we all stop laughing.

"Across the hallway," Peeta answers. 'Across the hallway' is a codename for the other unit we're not in at the moment, really, for they literally live across the hallway from each other. "Having some rest. She's been working all day."

"Oh wow," I say, feeling guilty that I didn't even notice that my friend's working too hard. "Thanks for taking her home, then."

Peeta looks surprised at this, for some reason I don't really get.

"Well, Annie," Jo barges in at this. "Your prophecy came true. He did take her home."

And it's only then I realize that I've just naturally assumed Peeta was the one taking Katniss home; not our best friend Jo or Katniss's own cousin Gale. They must be thinking I'm a seer or something - whilst, actually, I've only assumed that because of the way they act these days. Peeta and Katniss, sitting together at lunch. Peeta and Katniss, walking home together from work. Peeta and Katniss, having their coffee break in the mini-kitchen talking about Adelaide. It's always Peeta and Katniss nowadays.

I chuckle again, for it's really funny how Finn and I slipped under their radars, whilst we totally know what's happening between them.

"So," Jo starts again, a gleam of something in her eyes. "How's Finnyboy as a lover?"

"He's great," I answer calmly, knowing that she's just being Jo. "We're good together."

That's real. We've been having a good time together, getting to know each other - again - and making each other happy. And... well, I won't be a hypocrite and deny the truth that the physical attraction is too, there. I don't think I should judge my own attractiveness, but Finn's a really good looking man and there's no way I won't notice that.

"Oh, foggy eyes and all," Jo chides, though her grin tells me that doesn't seriously disturb her. Next to us, the boys are exchanging somewhat mischievous looks. One of those usual 'boys' code', I think. After all, they're the ones who's known Finnick - as the person he is now - longer.

I decide to spare them from the question of what kind of guy Finnick was like when he was at Uni - or _college _as they said it. The truth will come to me when it's ready, and it shouldn't matter to me anyway. I'm dating the current Finnick, not Finnick-from-college or even Finnick-from-a-year-ago.

"Hope it's not too awkward for you guys," I apologize to them once I'm fully back in the present. "Sorry that we didn't tell anyone, but..."

"No sorry," Jo cuts in, waving me off. "Who are we, your personal Moral Police? Who you're dating is your business, Crazy."

"Yeah," Peeta adds with a smile. "It's a good thing that you and Finnick are happy together. I'm happy for you - and I'm sure the others are happy too."

"You can count on us when he's being a prick, though," Gale says somewhat lightheartedly. "We've never failed in beating the sense back into that guy's head."

"Ooh," Jo chimes at this, leaning forward. "Is he a troublemaker? Tell me."

"Not quite," Peeta jokes. "Gale's the biggest troublemaker."

"But Peeta's the trouble-magnet," Gale retorts with this lopsided smile. "Remember that time when you helped that chick in Algos(7) and she had this wrong idea that you had a crush on her? That was priceless."

"And what that leaves Finnick with?" Jo asks.

The boys look at each other.

"I think he is _trouble_," Peeta then says. "A good kind of trouble, that is."

That makes us laugh again. This burden I've been feeling all along ever since that kiss in the car is fully lifted now. Our friends are happy for us. There's nothing to worry about.

Except that one lingering problem I still have with Finnick, regarding a certain aspect of our relationship which he refers to as 'The Third Base'.

* * *

**Johanna**

My goddamned Diary of Powerlessness is missing.

And no, it's not because I'm going senile or something like that. It's truly missing. As in, it's not in my room and not anywhere else in the house or in my bags.

Had I not been groped by that creep in Ash and Margaret's wedding, I would've guessed I'd left it in that hotel in Adelaide. But that creep really groped me, and I did ransack the hotel room trying to find it afterwards, so I'm sure as hell I didn't leave it there.

I'd initially assumed that I left it here in my bedroom, in the depth of my underwear drawer. It wasn't there, though. I'd torn it off and poured its contents - _all of it _- on my bed, and took the other drawers as well to see if I'd dropped it behind, but no. It had left the drawers, somehow.

I gave up the search that night, and went to bed dreading the day that some creep would turn it up. It was only when I woke up the next morning and started packing my backpack to go to work that I remembered putting it in my handbag before leaving the house on the Thursday. The diary had definitely been out of this house.

I spent my short walk to work ransacking my brain of where I might have dropped it that day. The office, Finnick's car, and the Sydney airport were soon ruled out, as I remembered seeing it when pulling out my earphones for the flight. Now, it was between the flight, the Adelaide airport, Gale's brother's car, the hotel lobby, the Adelaide zoo, and Rundle Mall. I definitely didn't bring it to the wedding, for I've only gotten my clutch bag with me that day.

I made a stop for a chocolate milkshake - at seven in the morning - at the nearest cafe that day, for the dread and the stress was driving me insane.

Close to two months later, and my diary is still missing - _of course_. What on earth gave me this hope that someone would turn it up one day, I have no freaking idea. There was little to no personal details there in that diary. Well, aside of my first name and references to some Sydney streets and my best friends' first names. It would be impossible for anyone to track me down through that thing - unless, if they'd known me or my friends _and_ they'd read the entries.

And that would be an absolute nightmare, really. To be seen as this girl who was gang-raped and is somewhat broken inside, instead of a strong, capable woman I'm striving to be.

They'll all look at me with pity, just like those doctors and nurses and police detectives.

"Hello? Earth to Johanna?"

Hell yeah. I've just zoned out on Gale Hawthorne.

"What?" I snap at him, leaning over this little cafe table just to show him I'm still in control.

"What do you think about that design idea?'

Ha ha ha. Good job, Johanna. You've just zoned out on him when he was telling you an _important _idea of his. Good impression.

"Do whatever you want," I tell him harshly, just to cover up my blunder. "It'll be all good."

He looks at me funny for a second, then breaks into a laughter.

"You really weren't listening," he shoots straight into the heart of the matter, shaking his head with this smug expression I find both _cool_ and _annoying_. "There was no design idea, or whatever that was. I was asking whether you think Catnip and Peeta are dating."

"Ha ha ha," I comment dryly, glaring at him. "You're funny."

He looks at me for a second before laughing again.

"So," he says afterwards, "do you think they are dating or not?"

"Definitely not," I answer confidently. "If you know Brainless - or Catnip as you call her - well enough, you'll realize she can't act at all. She won't be able to restrain herself from jumping him, if they're really dating."

"Then what are they?" he asks me.

"Well, why don't you ask them?" I ask him back.

He leans back a bit and turns his head to this giant gas heater next to us.

"Not my right to ask," he then says.

"Ooh," my snarky, smart-arse side takes over. "So it's your right to ask me that?"

"Shut up, Mason," he chides me. "Let's go back to coding now."

We get up from the table, leaving the plates and cups from our lunch there. They'll pick the things up later. I've seen them clearing up the tables next to us. Judging Gorgeous Jerk's reaction and the fact that he's walking at this speed I'm nearly unable to catch up with, we might have spent more than the forty-five minutes we've promised Brainless. Not that she'll get angry anyway - she won't even realize what time it is - but Gorgeous Jerk's other nickname is Drill Sergeant, and it does represent him well.

One traffic light. Another one. Some tall buildings. Gosh, my stomach hurts walking this pace.

"You realize not everyone's built with your ridiculous legs, don't you?" I quip him, as we power through another block of buildings.

"Well," he answers, turning to me, "you're short."

Now, that is _fact_. But, still, he has no bloody right to remind me of that.

I stop.

He stops and turns around a few seconds later, looking dead impatient like a kid rushing towards an ice cream truck.

"What are you waiting for?" he hollers at me.

"Nothing!" I holler back. From the corner of my left eye, I can see this newsagent place next to me. Sweet. Let's just get in there, to annoy the hell out of this annoying person.

I make my way to the door, which is shut but not locked. The single man on the register looks at me as I walk in, and I make a point to wave at him for I'm one cheeky monkey. There's not much stuff here, really, apart from stacks of newspapers and some female magazines which I don't really read. Oh, and stationeries.

And diaries.

Just what I need for the time being, coincidentally.

I walk towards the stacks of diaries and pick a brown one up, weighing in whether I really need a new Diary of Powerlessness. Perhaps it's time for me to start living without. I don't know if I'll be able to look my future partner or kids in the eyes, if they find out about the thing.

"A diary?"

_Damn._

I look over my shoulder, at all the six feet and some tall inches of Gale Hawthorne the Gorgeous Jerk and Drill Sergeant, standing casually next to me.

"Yes," I answer him, waving the thing on his face. "Any problem?"

He looks at me for some seconds, before answering, "no."

I snarl as I step past him to pay for my new brown buddy.

* * *

We didn't really talk for the rest of the day. Well, more exactly, he didn't really talk to anyone. Headphone on, eyes squinting, looking at the code. We all ended up leaving before him that day. Finnick and Annie were going to a dinner at Finnick's Grandma's place in Chatswood. Brainless and Peeta headed for junk food. They'd invited me to tag along, but I'm way too dignified to be a third wheel I just bailed out. I went straight home and poured myself some cereal for dinner, eating it in the company of Gale-Bear and some fanfiction on my phone. Yes, everyone, I _am_ that exciting.

It's nine o'clock now, and I currently am still alone reading a fanfiction. Blame Annie and her bout of obsession for this stuff in high school, but she got me hooked too. Me and her, we're kind of the same. Always rooting for the minor characters in a book or a movie, which you'll get a better chance of finding in fanfictions than in the original works. Unlike Brainless's kind of favourite character, who's always the main hero or main heroine of the story.

I'm halfway through the latest chapter of this fic I've been following - in which my favourite character almost kissed this rebel Commander - when I hear some tentative knocks on the door.

_Knock._

_Knock._

Ha. My best friend and flatmate has forgotten her key again, and is now knocking the door in shame.

I get on my feet and drag my steps deliberately, just to annoy Brainless Kitty Kat Katniss or whatever she's called, really. This would be the 12th time in these past two months that she forgets her key, and I've almost had enough of it. I'm seriously contemplating on drilling her bloody keychain onto her wrist with a kitchen knife now, just so that she doesn't forget the thing again.

"Know what?" I snap at her, as I pull the door open. "I'll really drill that hole in your arm this time. And I..."

That doesn't get finished, for the person standing before me is not Katniss. It's her cousin, Gorgeous Jerk Gale Hawthorne the Drill Sergeant.

"Come in," I tell him, after a few seconds of awkwardness. "Thought you were your senile, key-forgetting cousin."

He takes that invite and plops down on one of our dining chairs, right at home. I pull the chair across him and sit down, looking at him for I don't know what to do or say.

"What brings you here?" I finally ask, after a minute or so of me looking at him and him looking back.

There's no answer at first. I huff in boredom and turn towards the wall, as the staring game slowly gets boring.

"Is this yours?"

I eye the thing he's holding. It's red and little, and it looks like...

Oh. My. God.

He has my missing diary.

I sit still on my spot, as his facade breaks and this strange look emerges on his face.

He has definitely read it.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 McDonalds ;)

2 IDE = Integrated Development Environment. It is a software which helps you write software. To software engineers, it is what photoshop is to those graphic artists.

3 Chatime is one of the prominent bubble tea stores here in Sydney. There's one branch in Darling Harbour between where they lived and where they worked in this story.

4 "Out of bound" error is a common error in programming, in which you have a container with n compartments but attempt to retrieve an item from compartment n + 1 or n + 2, for example. This can result in calamity, for sometimes it does return random things and most other times it will crash your program.

5 To 'execute' in programming terms means to do a set of commands, not to kill. 'Kill' is another thing (it's synonymous with 'terminate' in programming world).

6 Seagulls are a common problem when you eat along the water here in Sydney. They will snatch your food from your hand, as if it's fish or something. I've seen a whole burger getting snatched.

7 Algos = Algorithms, one of the core subjects in a Computer Science degree. A difficult one, for it really works your brain hard. Think about an evil puzzle version of Maths which leaves you with a headache for days on end.

* * *

Thanks for reading everyone. I'm still writing 13 at the moment (700 words and going), so next update won't be perhaps until Sunday or Monday. Do let me know if there are things you wish to see in the next chapters though - there are definitely rooms for ideas and suggestions here :).

Stay gold!


	13. Chapter 13

**AN: **Hello! Thanks for reading, and following and favouriting. Special thanks to De-BardatBoston (who reviewed in a PM :)), SuperSaiyan529, and Ryden20 for their reviews. You guys all rock!

As per requests in ff net and AO3, this chapter will contain more of Katniss & Peeta, and more details of Johanna's diary and Johanna & Gale's thoughts about it. The Finnick & Annie arc is winding down, with only one or two issues to resolve, but there will still be some of them here (and some Finnick & Peeta heart to heart). Hope you enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **THG and its characters is Suzanne Collins', not mine :).

* * *

**Chapter 13**

**Katniss**

Today, I set a new record.

I sat at Harbourside Food Court until they kicked me out of it. With Peeta Mellark, eating both KFC and Maccas - in the same meal. It felt so good, really. My mother was - is - such a health freak, so I didn't really have these things throughout my childhood. That was, until I moved here to Sydney and started sneaking out with the girls after school.

"Gelato?" I offered Peeta at the end, for I still _wasn't _full at the end of the meal.

He laughed sheepishly.

"I'll pass," he then told me, making a rubbing gesture on his stomach. "I don't think it'll fit. I can sit there with you while you eat, though."

Well, it didn't seem like a fair and comfortable idea, so I decided to just go home and save the gelato for tomorrow or another day.

We're home now. Or, at least, on our floor. Standing in that hallway between our units, waving goodbyes to each other.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he says, as I twist my key and open my apartment's front door.

"See you tomorrow," I respond, turning around to acknowledge him one last time for the day.

He smiles in response, and I take the moment to go in. The door closes gently behind me and locks with a click, rendering Peeta completely out of view. With this little sadness I don't really understand, I head for my room past the dark, empty living room.

... except that it's not empty.

I put down my bag and stride over to crouch next to the couch. There's this still, curled up ball there, hidden under a faux-fur blanket. Jo's having an attack, over something I don't currently know.

"Hey," I greet her, plopping down on my butt for this isn't going to be a short ordeal. "What's wrong?"

She looks at me. Her eyes are not vacant, and she's not trembling - which is good sign. It means she has come back, and is just recovering now.

"He knows," she says, a hand reaching to my arm grasping it firmly. "he knows."

"Who?" I ask her, as gently as I could.

"Hawthorne."

I sigh. I really hope this isn't something serious like that first time he triggered her attack. With everything we all share now, we can't afford Jo and Gale hating each other - again.

"And what is this thing that he knows?" I ask, choosing my words cautiously. If our roles are to be reversed, Jo definitely won't be this careful. But this is no time for revenge, really. I need to help my friend.

She snorts humorlessly.

"My diary," she answers. Her eyes dart past my shoulder, towards the window behind me. "I dropped it in his brother's car. He found it. He read it."

"Oh, Jo."

I lean forward to hug her at this, for I have no more words to say. I've been one of the only few people to truly knew her fear of pity; of being viewed as this poor victim. My cousin would definitely pity her. He would remind her, every day, that she was once hurt.

"How did he react?" I finally ask, once we've broken apart again.

"He said all these things," she answers, her voice sad and cold. "Of how he would help me, of how he would make sure bad things don't happen to me again. There's one bottomline, though."

"And that is?" I probe carefully.

She laughs, cold and bitter.

"Pity. He pities me."

* * *

And so it's back to square zero again from that day on for their friendship. Well, perhaps not quite square zero, for they're civil towards each other now. They just don't really talk to each other anymore. More exactly, Jo doesn't really talk to Gale anymore. He still makes this daily efforts to talk to her, to which she'll respond with a joke or two before excusing herself or turning back to her screen.

That makes me a bit sad, to be honest, but there's nothing I can do. There's no time for personal problems. We have a deadline to catch.

Days pass, then weeks, and suddenly we're here now. Deadline Day. When our product is nicely wrapped and ready to go, and all that's left is the last minute checking and making sure there's no fatal bugs.

"Looks good to me," Peeta announces, after these tense forty-five minutes I spent standing behind him and watching him fondling with the thing. "Let's push(1) and stop here."

"You sure?" I ask him. As much as I want to believe that our work is good, I somehow can't.

He smiles at me.

"Katniss," he then says, "it's real."

I spend another fifteen minutes standing in silence as he pushes the thing onto the servers. He, too, is still and pensive, staring at his browser tab watching the thing goes to life. The others all stand around me. Finnick and Annie. Jo. Gale. All quiet and frowning, tense and still as we watch the fruit of our six-months labor going to life.

"Fark," Jo groans, as something happens on Peeta's browser tab.

Crap. That doesn't sound good. My heart starts sinking, as I know we won't be able to do any major fixes within the four hours we have left.

"What's that?" I snap at her.

"It's alive," she then whispers, her expression changing from stunned to euphoric. "It's BLOODY ALIVE!"

It's alive.

My pet project is alive.

My baby is alive.

Suddenly, the world's all rosy and bright to me. I choke on something - a sob, I think - then start laughing, for this is all too good. Around me, I can see everyone laughing and Peeta reaching for that bottle of champagne we've bought for the occasion. He hands it to me for popping out, and I pop it out so hard and loud it spills on the carpet and all over our shoes. Again, we all laugh it off. It's such a happy time.

"Here, let me pour it," Jo grumbles playfully, grabbing the bottle off my hand. "One more spill, and we'll all be combustible."

"'sif you already aren't," I quip her back, winking at her.

She looks at me as if I have two heads or so, then scoots over to pour the thing on some plastic cups.

"To MockingStream!" Peeta leads the toast, once we each have our cup.

"To MockingStream!" we all echo. The sky's dark outside, and no one is in the office but the six of us, but somehow I can hear this constant happy buzz from around me.

"Dinner?" Peeta offers, once we're all done with the toast.

"Sure," I say, for my stomach is grumbling hard. I haven't really eaten since... this morning, I think. Oh well.

We look around at the four others, but nothing greets us but these sheepish glances and tired faces.

"I'm bailing," Jo answers first, yawning visibly. "Gotta drag my arse home and collapse. Bring me home some takeaway, though, if you feel like being nice today."

"Gotta take Annie home," Finnick barges in next, glancing at a swaying, tired-looking Annie. "It's getting a bit late for the buses."

My eyes move to Annie at this, but she doesn't seem to be listening. She's totally wiped out.

Gale hasn't said anything. I look at him, and he finally speaks upon meeting my eyes.

"I'm gonna crash too," he says. "Don't have energy left."

Well, that's weird, for he doesn't look quite as tired as the others are. But I'm too happy to pull a fight for the time being, and thus I let him be.

We wait for each other before leaving our area and take that journey down to the streets together. Our walk together is over at the very first intersection, though. I'll be heading South with Peeta, towards the Chinatown and its surrounding areas; whilst Annie and Finnick head East to her bus stop and the rest head back home.

"See you tomorrow!" I wave at them all, as our pedestrian light goes green.

They all wave back and fall back to this unusual silence. I wonder what's really going on.

"They're just tired," Peeta says, as if he's been reading my mind. "They'll be back to normal tomorrow."

That reassurance in hand, I let the thing out of my brain and focus on our walk. It's only a little past eight at night, and the city has just started truly coming to its Friday night life. Flocks of dressed-up, giddy guys and girls hitting the city after some pre-drinks at home. With my jeans and T-shirt and Peeta's work attire of jeans and some button-up shirt, we look quite out of place here. No one bats an eyelid, though. Everyone's too preoccupied with their own things.

"Any place suggestions?" he asks me, when we got to Town Hall.

"Nothing fancy," I answer him. I seriously don't feel comfortable at those fancy restaurants. "The usual places would do."

'The usual places' refers to the collection of KFC, Maccas, Hungry Jack's(2), and Subway. The things I eat whenever I'm coding, really.

"Hmm," he responds, frowning a bit in thoughts. "How about All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Hut(3) at George Street?"

"There's such place?" I ask him, surprised.

"Heard about that from some guys at work," he answers me. "I haven't been there myself, but it's worth checking out, I think."

And so that's where we're heading, with the help of our smartphones and trusty old MockingMap.

"Two?" the cash register girl says, as we present ourselves there.

"Yes, please," Peeta answers, flashing a smile. He pulls his wallet out and hands the girl a fifty dollars note - more than enough to cover the entire bill.

"Here," I push my twenty dollars note into his hand. "Take this."

Some kind of conflict crosses his face. He quickly recovers and mutters a thank you, though, slipping my note into his wallet. Together, we head to a comfortable booth-style table at the corner of the room, next to glass window which shows the view of the crowded, dark George Street.

"You go first," he says, handing me one of the two plates stacked on the table. "I had lunch."

So, he noticed that I didn't have lunch. I take the plate from him and stand up, trying to push aside this funny feeling I have upon realising it. Perhaps he only noticed because we usually have lunch together and I told him to go ahead with the boys instead today.

The buffet is fairly good for the price we paid. Five different types of pizza, a salad bar, two different pasta, and some dessert. I get myself some pizza and creamy salads, and head back to the booth so that Peeta can go. He comes back a while later, plate stacked with pasta and some bread, and together we plough in.

"What do you think?" he asks me, two plates and some dessert later.

"It's pretty good," I say. "I wish I hadn't eaten so much though."

We laugh together. We've surely eaten a lot - a whole lot, actually.

"What should we get Johanna?" he says afterwards, as we get up and waddle out of Pizza Hut.

"Oh crap," I mutter. I look at him. "Thanks for reminding me."

"Don't wanna be the object of her wrath," he responds with this cheeky smile.

He makes me laugh. Again. For the tenth or so time today.

We slip back to the busy pavement of George Street, trying to spy for more food places around us. There are plenty, actually, but we end up at KFC in the corner of George and Bathurst Streets. It looks like the safest place for the time being, for it actually has a door which closes as opposed to the open facades of the other places.

"What does she like?" Peeta asks me.

"Depends on what mood she's in," I tell him the truth. Jo's favourite piece of chicken changes daily. It can be the breast one day, and the drumstick the next. "Let's just get her a bucket(4)."

"Sure."

We join the line at the back and move along. He entertains me with these stories of his own KFC adventures when he was younger the whole time we queue, one of which involves Gale and some stupid bet.

"Hi, how can I help you?"

Oh, wow. We're at the front of the line, already.

"We'd like a bucket, please," Peeta asks, cheerful and polite. Again, he whips out his wallet and pays for the thing. "Oh, and some mash and gravy please. The chicken has to go with something."

Gosh. Why does this guy have to be so nice?

... and why do I want to kiss him now?

None of these makes sense.

* * *

**Finnick**

"Finn?"

I tear my gaze off the crowd and turn to Annie, who's sitting next to me. The ice cream cup in her hands is now empty. I must have gazed off for a while, for it was half full the last time I checked.

"Just thinking about work," I lie to her, as I reach for her closest hand. "Hope the trial users like our product."

"Hope so," she responds, grasping my hand and smiling. God. How on earth I deserve her? Here she is, beaming at me, after I've lied right on her face. Here she is, this girl so loving and devoted, in front of me, the former Ladies' man freaking out about the possibility of bumping into a past squeeze or two.

"Hey!"

Shiz. A female voice. Looks like one of my past ladies is indeed here.

I turn around to see the owner of the voice. A tall blonde with green eyes, which I'm not sure I've seen before. But again, I've never really paid attention to their faces, have I? I wouldn't have been able to recognize most of them.

"Hey Cash," Annie chimes next to me. She stands up and meets the woman in the eyes. "Long time no see."

_Thank God._

I sit there watching, as they exchange pleasantries. It looks like they were High School friends in some sort - or perhaps acquaintance, since Annie told me Johanna and Katniss were all she really had in high school.

"Oh, Cash, meet Finnick," Annie says, two or three sentences later. "Finn, this is Cash, a high school classmate of mine."

I stand up and shake this Cash girl's extended hand, just because. She turns back to Annie afterwards and continues their chat about the whereabouts of various classmates of theirs, though, so I'm free again. Thank Lord she doesn't show any interest in me.

Wait. What have I just thought about?

Man, I don't really know what's going on in my head these days.

Cash is gone a minute or so later, joining a blonde older couple and a blonde young man - her family, apparently - and soon it's back to just me and Annie, on our little bench in Pitt Street Mall5, this Saturday afternoon. I can't help but pulling my girlfriend - _God, is that real?_ - closer to me as she leans against my shoulder. I don't want to ever lose her.

"What are you really thinking about, Finn?"

I just look down and pull her tighter, for I can't answer that question.

* * *

"Thanks for dinner, Man," I tell Peeta, as he sets some roast chicken, some handmade rolls, and a bowl of salad in front of me. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

He just laughs this off and proceeds with cleaning the kitchen benches. That's my Mate, really. Humble and kind.

"You'll be fine," he tells me afterwards, as he sits down across from me. "You have Annie now."

_Oh, Annie._

I must have looked pretty crap, for Peeta's expression softens.

"Are things alright with her?" he carefully asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "The only thing wrong is me."

Peeta just looks at me. Not judgingly, not tiredly. He just looks at me.

"Why?" he finally asks.

I laugh bitterly at this.

"Come on, Peet," I chide him. "You've seen me these past nine years or so. You know I'm a mess."

"Everyone's a mess in their own way, Finn," he says. He picks a roll and put it on my plate, leaving enough room for the salad he spoons there next, and the piece of chicken he adds in afterwards. "I'm not saying you've always done the right thing, but... you can give yourself a chance, Finn."

Giving myself a chance. Lord, it's so hard. It's not about giving chances, really - I've given people second chances before. It's about giving a chance to _myself_.

"I..."

"I'm going to remind you of this every day," he cuts in with this impish smile, jabbing something on his smartphone. "Finnick has to give a chance to himself. Done. Now, go eat your dinner and give yourself a chance."

He then gets up and pat myself on the back, leaving me with dinner and an advice to ponder upon.

* * *

The reminder pops on my phone around midday the next day, as I sit in my room watching some classics with Annie.

"_Give yourself a chance._"

I smile to myself, as I put my phone back down on the bed. I don't think I'll be able to shake this worthless feeling soon, or tell Annie about my past today, but I can try to just enjoy the moment and put all those behind.

* * *

**Gale**

Johanna is still avoiding me.

I sit down on my chair and log back into my machine, playing it all along with her. I have work to do anyway. Our Trial Users has come back with some valuable feedback, which Peeta then put into some feature requests. Catnip - our Team Lead for this project - has assigned me a couple to do. Small ones, but still, things to do.

"Hey, Gale."

I look over my shoulder and see her swivelling around to face me. She really wants to talk about something.

I end up swivelling around, just to be fair.

"'Sup?" I ask her.

"You know what's eating up most of the CPU time in our backend?" she proceeds.

Ah, so that's it. A work-related question.

"The collision-detection," I answer her, "we execute that every single time, and it's no easy stuff."

"Thanks," she responds. I watch, as she swivels back and starts fondling with her graphs again. She's definitely ignoring me here.

I spend most of my day working, and my lunch eating with the boys. The girls have a private girls' lunch, at Johanna's insistence. Another day passed, without even catching her in the eyes. Hell. If I'd known I would mind being ignored by her, I definitely would just pretend my brother didn't find that diary of hers and I didn't read it.

I walk home alone in the afternoon, for Peeta and Catnip are still in a meeting with Haymitch and Finnick and Annie are visiting Mags in Chatswood today. Johanna has disappeared. Not that she would walk home with me nowadays, anyway. The last time we walk home together was the day MockingStream was launched - and she didn't even really want it. She just walked next to me, eyes straightforward and lips sealed silent.

Hell. I really really wish I'd just pretended to not know about her diary and the rape now. It's clearly a secret she doesn't want anyone to know about.

Walking alone means I don't have to slow down for anyone, and thus I get home pretty quickly. The building manager's sitting on his desk in the foyer when I walk in; I wave him a polite good afternoon before pressing the 'up' button to call one of the lifts. Both of them are going up to some high floors now, looks like it'll be a while before I can get in.

"Oh, hey."

I turn to the familiar voice, to see _her _in her winter jogging gear. _Damn. _She looks damn hot now.

"Hey, Johanna."

That's the end of our interaction, really. We fall back into this silence afterwards.

_Ding. _Here comes the lift.

I step back, just so that she can get in first. But it doesn't happen. She just stands there looking at me, motioning me to get in. I end up getting in first, just so that we don't miss the lift.

"I've got it," she jumps in quickly, as I reach into my pockets to find my key card. I watch on, as she leans forward and touched her card on the sensor; her short, slim fingers pressing our floor's button afterwards.

"Thanks," I tell her.

"Oh, shut up," she snaps back, rolling her eyes. "I'm going to the same floor anyway."

Damn. That's one heck of a shocking reaction.

... or maybe not, really. She doesn't like it when people do things to her out of courtesy. I learned about that weeks ago, when she shrugged off Finnick's offer to take on one of her tasks just so that she didn't have to stay in late. She always wants to be seen as capable.

She steps out first when we get to our floor. I follow her close behind, ransacking my brain for things to say the whole way to our units - with no avail. I guess I'm not that good a talker.

"See you at work tomorrow," she says, as she slips behind her unit's door. "Hope you have a nice evening."

"See you," I respond, as I don't know what else to say.

I get to my unit and head straight for the TV, using the perfect opportunity of being alone in the house to watch what I like. There's this new war movie that I'd been wanting to watch forever, but never found time for. I load it from our shared drive and pop in some leftovers into the microwave when I wait, thinking about none but Johanna and the diary the whole time.

'_Like that time when they held me down so that he could do it. Helpless. Powerless. I hate that feeling. I hate the person I was back then. I wish I'd been able to fight back from the start. I wish I wasn't such a girl._'

'_I have been told so many times before that not all men are like them. Yet it's hard to believe it sometimes. Not when they all look down at me, and not only because of my height. Not when all they see when they see me is a small woman, a weak creature less than what they are. Not when they think they have power over me._'

I try to push them down and just enjoy my quiet time, but I can't. Those snippets just keep flying in my head, along with a lot of other ones. They're haunting me.

I don't know why on earth I care, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like killing her attackers with my bare hands.

* * *

I had the weirdest of dreams.

In my dream, I was a secret agent assigned in this operation cracking this underaged prostitution ring led by Cori Snow, that Chairmen everyone hates. I got to their headquarters with my gun and started shooting and breaking doors, until I got to this back room where he'd chained all his whores. There were several boys and girls there, all somewhat good looking. As I got closer, though, I realized that they were not just boys and girls. One of them was Finnick. And another one was Johanna.

I woke up alone on my living room couch, right when I stared into her brazen, fiery eyes.

"Hell," I muttered to myself, as I picked myself up and headed for my room. "Hell."

The digital clock told me it was only eleven PM, and there were still some noises from Peeta and Finnick's rooms, but I didn't feel like talking to them right. Especially not Finnick, after that weird dream.

I ended up with a whole night of uneasy sleep, full of strange dreams featuring brazen, wide-set brown eyes.

That's exactly how I find myself at work at six in the morning, with a quadruple-shot long black as company. I need a distraction, and work usually does it for me.

... except that it doesn't, this time.

'_I don't wanna live like this. I hate this fear. I hate the attacks. I'm strong. I don't have any fear._'

'_I wonder if I'll be able to let any man in, ever. Maybe I'll die single and old, in a house full of Kats - no, cats. And that would be fine, because I'm strong._'

I close my eyes, for her words really break my heart. Somehow. It's ridiculous, considering how horrible she was to me those few months ago, but somehow I couldn't stop caring. Those hidden pains just get to me.

And it's driving me insane, for I've never felt for someone this way for a while. I think I did feel for my Mum when my Dad went insane, but that was years ago when I was a kid. I'm not that good in empathy.

"Morning, Hawthorne."

_Damn. _Think of the devil and she would appear.

I turn around and watch her, as she puts down her backpack and takes her jacket off. She looks so strong yet so fragile, and I just want to hold her. Seriously. There are few things I've wanted this badly before.

She turns around. Our eyes meet.

"You staring at something there?" she asks, somewhere between humorous and hostile.

I don't know what gets into me, but I get up and pull her into my arms then.

"Dude!" she yells at me, as she yanks herself off me. "What the fark?"

I look at her, as I curse myself for being such an impulsive idiot.

"Well," I finally say, for there's nothing else I can say, really. "I think I'm into you."

* * *

**Katniss**

This is a miracle, really, but Jo's up and all dolled-up when I walk out of my room in pajamas on Saturday morning.

"Where are you going?" I ask her. She's not usually up this early on Saturdays. Except when she's having a nightmare, of course - but she doesn't look haunted so I assume that's not it.

"Scored a date," she answers in passing, her eyes fixed on the cup of tea she's pouring. "Won't be back until much later, I think - so don't wait for me."

I stand there, slack-jawed, as I process her words. Jo, who is sure as hell that she's straight yet hates men's guts, going on a date. What on earth is going on, and who on earth is she seeing?

I make my way to the kitchen and grab her on the shoulder, for this is all so weird.

"Jo," I say to her quietly, "what's going on, really?"

She gives me this looks which basically says she thinks I'm being weird.

"I said I scored a date," she repeats, turning back to her tea. "Anything weird about that?"

"Nothing," I tell her. "It's just..."

This is so childish, but I find my voice catching at this. "You've never told me anything about this before."

She turns to me.

"I thought you know," she reasons, taking a sip of her tea. "This has gone on for months, really."

I fold my arms on my chest as I take in her words. _This has gone on for months_. Who's been close to her these past few months, really, apart from those boys across the hall?

It's definitely one of them. Maybe not Finnick, for he's Annie's now, but one of the other two. My cousin, Gale. And Peeta.

... _Peeta_.

Something rings in my ears. I lean back against the counter for I feel a bit light.

"You right there, Brainless?" Jo asks me, looking really concerned.

"Yeah," I finally pipe out. "Just still sleepy, I guess. Good luck with your date, Jo."

I slip back into my room before she can ask further things, for this pang of pain in my chest is becoming really uncomfortable.

The front door clicks shut a couple of minutes later. She's gone now, for her date with either my cousin or Peeta.

_Please let it be Gale_, I find myself praying, as I sit on my bed staring at my window. _Please let it be Gale_.

I get up and make a second attempt to start my Saturday about half an hour later. There's not much I can do right now, really. I wouldn't even be able to do anything if she'd told me it was Peeta. I can't begrudge Jo's happiness, really. She deserves it.

I'm in the middle of putting on my boots to go grab breakfast, when someone knocks on the door.

"Just one moment please!" I holler, as I hastily lace my left boot.

"Take your time!" the voice outside cheerfully says.

Wait. Isn't that Peeta?

I run up to the door and open it, almost too excitedly. There he is, standing in his jeans and shirt and jacket, looking all ready to go.

"Oh," he says, when he sees me. "You've got a plan too."

"No," I cut in quickly, a rush of something I've never felt before spreading over my veins. "Just gotta grab breakfast by myself. Annie's with Finnick today, and Jo's got a date or something with some mystery guy. Do come in."

He looks at me with this amused expression.

"Katniss," he says afterwards, lowering down his voice. "Johanna's mystery guy is Gale."

"Oh," I say, as the thing spreading over my veins before takes over again. "Oh, well."

"I know," Peeta chuckles out, shaking his head. "It's kind of hard to see that one coming, right?"

"Yeah," I agree. There's this straining sensation on my cheeks, and I know I must be smiling - but I don't care, really. I can't deny that I'm really happy right now.

"You said you were going for breakfast, right?" Peeta then asks. "I was going to ask if you want breakfast, for I was going to go myself... but it's okay, really, if you want some alone time."

"No, no," I find myself cutting in again - a bit too excitedly for my liking. "I'll come with you. Err, I mean, it would be nice to have some company."

I dash in to grab my wallet, before he can say anything about it.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 'push' = 'push to server', update the current version of something in the server OR get it to start serving the new thing.

2 Here in Australia, we don't have Burger King. It's called 'Hungry Jack's'.

3 Yes, people. There does exist an All You Can Eat Pizza Hut at George Street, one of the main roads of Sydney CBD.

4 A bucket means several pieces of fried chicken, packed in a small bucket. Like a family-size thing.

5 Pitt Street Mall is what we call this stretch of Pitt Street, one of CBD's main street, which is closed off for cars and set up as a shopping precinct.

* * *

Thanks for reading everyone! I'm still writing chapter 14, hopefully will finish by Wednesday (currently 1,500 words and counting). Have a good start of the week!


	14. Chapter 14

**AN: **Hello! Me again here. Thanks for reading, following, and favouriting. Special thanks to De-BardatBoston (whose reviews are a constant motivation for me), SuperSaiyan529, and Mysteryreader98 for the reviews. You guys all rock!

This chapter contains lots of Everlark, the end of the Odesta arc of the story (a happy one, of course!), and what would be a closure and new start for Johanna (in her new life with Gale, of course). I sort of pre-planned this chapter, but it turns out that these things are what some readers want, so big win for me :).

Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **Just borrowing Suzanne Collins' stuff here :).

* * *

**Chapter 14**

**Peeta**

Katniss is absolutely giddy today.

She flew out of her apartment unit's door the second I asked her if she wanted to have breakfast. There was this spring in her steps as we made our way to XXII, and an unusual smile and friendly demeanour when we put our order with the waiter. I didn't have to start our conversation - she started it, without prompting. And she laughed. As in, a whole lot.

She'd asked if I was alright to go to the Royal Botanical Gardens(1), and that sounded like a really good idea, so here we are now. It's a bit nippy, for it's still winter, but the sun is out bright and strong today so it's not at all unbearable. I'm strolling a step behind Katniss along that narrow path right on the water, enjoying both the view and her good, bright mood. I've never thought we would ever got this far, really - all that coldness and misunderstandings those months ago - but, hey, it happens. We're now some kind of good friends. I would be a freaking liar to not admit I actually wish we're something more, but this is good enough I don't really think I should ask for more. I understand her trust issue and wariness of people, and I won't do something as such to step over her line of comfort. This is about her as much as it is about me.

"You still Okay walking?" she asks me, out of the blue.

"Yeah," I answer, in all honesty. We've walked for perhaps an hour - that's roughly how far this place is from Pyrmont - but I'm no stranger to long walks I still feel okay. "You?"

"Yep," she responds with this small smile. "I love walking. It gives you time to think, and new ideas."

"I love walking too," I tell her. "It has this mind-clearing effect for me, though, so it looks like we're doing it for completely different reasons."

She chuckles over this. It amazes me, really, for what I was hoping for was a curt nod of acknowledgement or a scowl.

"Looks like we do," she agrees afterwards.

She veers to this grassy area on our left, and I veer along behind her. The view from here is amazing, I know she must be stopping to have a look. I sit next to her, as she plops down on the grass. Close to her, but not too close. Over the months, I've learned that Katniss likes her personal space. A little bit too much, maybe, but not too outrageous it's impossible to respect.

Several minutes - maybe close to fifteen, even - pass in silence, as we sit side by side admiring the harbour view in front of us. Choppy waves meeting clear blue sky, with the ferries and sailing boats and that one floating glass ballroom(2 )where a wedding seems to be taking place. I wish I've got my sketching pad with me now; this is absolutely priceless.

"Prim would have loved this," Katniss eventually breaks the silence, again out of the blue. "She'd really be happy here."

I turn to her and give her a weak smile. If it's up to me, I'd really pull her into my arms for a friendly hug - but I know that she won't really like it, so I stay still here. Her expression has fallen; the thought of her long-gone sister seems to still pain her a lot. I remember Gale told me once that the Everdeen girls had always been close, and that the fun-loving part of Katniss seemed to die with her sister. I don't think I have the right to vouch for her pain, for I've never lost a sibling, but I understand her.

"But, anyway," she continues, a minute or so later. "What happened has happened. All I have now is what I have."

I don't know what her cryptic wisdom means, really, but I secretly hope that her definition of 'what I have' includes me and the boys. We might be relatively new friends to her, but we all care about her the same.

She pulls me up afterwards, and we continue our journey through the gardens, until we reach the Opera House. We make a stop at Guylian's(3) for hot chocolates there, and stroll through Circular Quay(4) with our steaming hot drinks in hand. There's this one moment at The Rocks' Markets(5) when we both think we've just seen Finnick and Annie sneaking past, but apart from that, it's all happy and light. We're back in our apartment building within two hours of so, after those detours to the Apple Store and various bookstores in the city.

"Well," I say to her, as I pull out my keys to my unit. "I'll see you..."

"Actually," she cuts in hastily, "Jo's downloaded(6) some new movies and put them in our shared drive. Would you like to watch some?"

_What? What did I just heard?_

"Umm... sure," I finally relent, pocketing my keys back. "Let's see what you guys have."

Five minutes later, I'm sitting in her living room couch, listening to her soft rambles about what she thinks each of those new movies Johanna downloaded is about. We settle for the second movie of that famous trilogy at the end, for apparently Johanna and Annie couldn't stop raving about it. It turns out to be indeed a good movie, until the end, where the main guy and that one badass side character girl got taken away by the bad guys.

"This is my least favourite part of the trilogy," Katniss rants out, as the end credit rolls in and we recover from the disappointment. "I hope they've started making the third and fourth movies now."

"There's a fourth book?" I ask her, surprised. As far as I know, the thing is a trilogy.

"No," she answers me. "They're splitting the third book into two parts."

Alright, so it does make sense now.

"Your turn," she says, once the screen goes completely dark. "I chose that one, so now you choose yours."

I take a quick look at the clock just to confirm the time. Five pm. Not too late for another movie, I guess.

"Sure," I tell her. She hands me the remote, and I end up choosing this one artsy movie I think would be really good. It turns out not to be interesting enough for her, though, for she falls asleep on my shoulder in the middle of it. I have to try hard to restrain my laughter, for she looks really different when asleep like this. Almost like an innocent, sweet girl.

I stay on for a while, for I don't wanna disturb her. Then, of course, dinnertime rolls in, and I realize we haven't had anything since breakfast. I shift her, carefully, onto the arm of the couch and slip into her kitchen to find something to make for her.

Johanna and Katniss's kitchen turns out to be a mini nightmare for me. Lots and lots of instant noodles, canned food, and other easy things like that. There's absolutely nothing in the fridge, apart from eggs and some frozen stuff. And there's no spices at all, apart from some salt and pepper in the shakers.

And there comes another point of agony for me. I'm torn between waiting for her to wake up here and crossing the hallway to pick up some ingredients from my own kitchen. It's only when I realize I won't be able to get back in here if I leave that a third voice butts in. I'm gonna create a meal from what they have here.

Less than an hour later, I'm scooping some instant mashed potato, some mushy peas, and some gravy-from-a-mix onto some oven-heated frozen pies. Oh, well. Not my finest, but still looking pretty great.

"Huh?"

I turn around, and see Katniss sitting up on the couch, disoriented and somewhat panicked.

"Hey," I say, "I made dinner."

Her face lights up in something I haven't seen before, but then something else happens in her mind and she's back to stoic.

"Thanks," she says afterwards, stretching a bit before getting up. "I think I'm a bit hungry."

It's only when I'm back in my own room, an hour and a bit later, that it occurs to me that I've just spent the entire day in some kind of date with Katniss Everdeen. She might not have realized this at all, and it's really absurd, but, yes, it is definitely a date. A friends' date, at least.

I fall into a dreamless sleep before my Mates get home.

* * *

**Annie**

Finn's disappearing into his own mind _again_.

I've been observing this for weeks now. He doesn't do it that often anymore, but still, he's lost somewhere sometimes. When I ask him about it, he just smiles and makes some excuses. I've always let him get away with it, for it's his right not to share things with me or with other people. But still, it kinds of hurt a bit when he does that. As in, there's this secret Finn I don't know.

"Hey," I finally say to him, deciding to repeat my question again, "what's wrong?"

He snaps out of his thoughts, just like usual. But then, instead of smiling, he reaches for my hand.

"Annie," he says, somber and quiet. "There's something I need to tell you now."

"Yes?" I find myself asking him. "Go on?"

He inhales deeply and looks down. Whatever he's about to say must be really heavy.

"You know the whole story about my Dad's girlfriend, right?"

I nod.

"You know that she guilt-tripped me and took advantages of me, right?"

"That's exactly why my brother flagged the police, Finn," I remind him. I regret the words as soon as I hear them. There's no doubt I'll be able to forget it, really, but, I don't need to make Finn feel guilty. "Err, sorry. I mean..."

"S'okay," he cuts in. "That's the truth."

I grasp his hand, for that's all I can do for his comfort. For him to acknowledge what happened back then is such a big thing; I know he'd rather forget.

"It... it damaged me," he continues, tilting his head towards me. "I... I guess I got a bit confused after that. I... Annie, I... I got with different girls every weekend."

I pull my hands away in a reflex reaction. To tell the truth, I'm not that surprised it happened. It just... still hurts, I guess. I guess once you love someone, you do get a little bit possessive. And I love Finn. It took me a while to realise this, but I've always loved him since we were kids.

"'Got'," I finally find my voice back. "When did you stop, exactly?"

"Remember the day we bumped into each other at the apartment's pool, and you challenged me for a race?"

I nod. That's one of my favourite memories, to tell the truth.

"That was the very day I stopped."

Oh, God. This is just too much.

I get up from his bed and walk to his window. The blinds are open, and from here, I can see a view of Darling Harbour and the city. I don't want to cry, I hate this feeling, but I can't stop it. I cry.

"Annie..."

"Don't," I warn him. "It's okay. It's just..."

I can't finish that. It's too painful. Oh, how I wish I was more like Jo and Kat. They won't get tongue-tied like this.

Finn remains silent, as I stand there trying to sort my feelings out. I know I don't hate him, and we weren't together back then he wasn't cheating on me. I think I just love him enough to feel jealous of some women of the past.

"Alright," I tell myself, once I feel the tears winding down and my voice coming back. "Just tell him, just tell him, silly."

I turn around. Finn's still sitting on his spot, silent and resigned. I don't exactly know why this is, but part of me has this hope that it's because he loves me too.

"Sorry," I begin, holding in a breath to still my heart. "I... I've just been loving you since we were kids."

As soon as I hear those words, I clasp my hand on my mouth. No. That wasn't what I meant to say. It's supposed to be, "I'm just jealous because I've been loving you since we were kids". God. What have I done?

He tilts his head. And looks at me. Now, I've seen him crying once before, when we went visiting Mark at Rookwood, but until now, I've never made him cry.

"Annie," he says, his voice trembling a bit. "I've been loving you since we were kids, too. Even when there were these other girls, it's always been you. No one else has never measured."

And that's it. That's seemingly all that we need.

I climb back on the bed and plant a kiss on his lips to seal everything.

* * *

**Johanna**

It's one thirty in the morning, and I'm supposed to be asleep. But, alas, here I am instead: on my living room couch, with the original Gale-bear on my lap. I love my brain, really, don't get me wrong, but at times like this, I wish it can just stop for a while and let my poor body rest. It's been up and going for more than twenty four hours now, and it's dead tired, but it can't rest.

I've tried everything to fall asleep, for everything's sake. Warm milk. Counting sheep - now, this actually worked, until the memory of a certain sheep joke coming out of a certain someone's mouth took over and ruined it. Writing down my thoughts on my brown diary - which is now my 'Diary of Restlessness'. Yet here I am now, still awake. And going insane, with all these circular thoughts which come back to themselves and blend together in a way I'm sure will even freak the ever-imaginative, ever-open-minded Crazy out.

I'm not emotionally slow like Brainless. I know what I want right now. I'm sure that I'll just fall into this sleep of sweet dreams, if it's been Gale and not his latest bear - a toddler-sized one with red ribbon - sleeping on my bed next to me.

Yes, everyone. We're together now. Or, sort of.

He's been cautious and respectful - so much for my initial judgements of him - and I've been playing along as this pious, sacred, saintly, innocent girl just because I'm scared. I think I'm doing pretty well I even disgust myself sometimes. How can I pretend that I don't want anything more than holding hands and chaste kisses, when my thoughts and my dreams are telling me otherwise?

I hate admitting this, but I don't know what to do now.

"Jo...?"

That's Brainless, waddling out of her room to use the bathroom.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing sitting with your bears?"

Oh, great. Brainless's got her nosey mode switched on. Perhaps because her brain - or whatever stub was there, for she's _brainless _ - is still half asleep.

"Mind your own business," I simply wave her off, for I don't really wanna talk to her about it right now. I don't think she'll take, '_Hey, I wanna do your cousin, but I'm scared_' really well.

"Did my cousin jilt you?"

Oh, fark. Brainless, where've you got that from?

"No," I answer finally, putting on my smug voice. "Still pretty much ensnared, as far as I can tell. Unless you know something which I don't, in which case you should tell me now because you're my honorary sister. Sisters don't keep secrets."

That seems to wake her up, for she plops down on the couch next to me, carefully rearranging my bears as if I'm five and she's my babysitter or something. I snort as I pass one of them - the medium-sized one with blue ribbon - to her. She sits it carefully on her lap, as if I've just passed her my kid or something, and I just lost it. This is so freaking funny.

"Damn it, Jo," she grumbles, yawning loudly. "One second you act so depressed, then the next one, you're happy as. What's going on?"

"You kidding me?" I spit back at her. "You're freaking funny, Brainless! Don't you see that?"

She just stares at me. Oh, well. I've just forgotten that she's indeed Brainless.

"Nevermind," I tell her afterwards, waving her off. "You're welcomed to sit here with me and the bears, until you get bored or fall asleep."

"For earth's sake, Jo," she snaps in impatiently. "What's going on?"

Oh, damn it. She wants to know. Alright, I might as well let her know.

"Okay," I start. "Listen carefully, for I'm not gonna repeat it. I want to do your cousin, but I don't know how."

She frowns, then brings a hand to my forehead. Hells help me. She thinks I'm running a fever.

Well, I'm not. So, of course, she then drills again.

"Jo, seriously. You gave Annie the talk. You can't possibly not know how to... to be with a man."

Sure. I know how it works, physically. How can I not know that, after...

"Kat," I find myself saying, "it'd only happened to me once. And it was a rape."

At this, some kind of curtain closes around my head. I fight it with all I had, for I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being controlled by those sick bastards. It's been eleven years now. Eleven _bloody _years. I can't let it be.

"Jo," I hear Brainless saying, a few seconds afterwards. "I think you should call our Head Doctor."

"What?"

That comes out of my mouth instantly, before I can even process what she's just said. Seriously. What's Brainless thinking about? Our Dear Head Doctor will surely cart me straight into the madhouse if I turn up at his practice asking him how to get laid.

"Call dr. Aurelius."

"Fark, Brainless," I huff exasperatedly at her. "You really want me to tell dr. Aurelius my farking problem?"

"That's why he's there, Jo. To fix your problems."

And that's when it hits me right in the head. Perhaps, dr. Aurelius is all I need now.

* * *

That's how I find myself sitting at dr. Aurelius's waiting room this Saturday morning, pretending to read this gossip magazines I don't really care about whilst wondering what on earth is he telling my boyfriend in there.

Dear Head Doctor had asked me to bring Gale in when I turned up in his practice last week with my little problem. It sounded like a dreadful idea, at first, but to my surprise, Gale didn't freak out. He simply went here with me, and calmly went in by himself when requested. It's me who's freaking out now, for I don't really know what's happening inside there.

The door creaks open. Here he is; my boyfriend, who's just talked to my shrink about my intimacy issues.

"Jo?"

I put down my magazine and grab my handbag. I can't look into his eyes. I just wanna get out of here. I'm disgusting. He must be dead disgusted at me now.

"Come here."

He pulls me into his arms and holds me tightly at this. It feels so beautiful I find myself choking a sob; I've never guessed something like this would happen before.

"We'll get there, alright?" he reassures me, planting a kiss on my head. "We'll get there."

I come undone at that.

* * *

**Peeta**

Katniss's little idea has taken its flight.

We've finally launched to the general public, out of the trial stage. The news made it to the front pages of newspapers, magazines, and tech news websites. There were, of course, the few negative comments made by some people who were unhappy about things, but, overall, the reception has been so positive.

And that's why we find ourselves in a meeting room with Haymitch, at seven thirty AM on a Monday morning.

"Kids," he starts, as soon as the door's closed. "I have some news, which I'm sure you'll react horribly to."

We throw looks at each other. Haymitch's really blunt - and we know he must really mean what he's saying.

"The Board of Directors have decided that MockingStream is indeed a viable product, and is setting up a new team to handle its running and new feature development in the Seattle office."

"What?" I hear Katniss hissing, anger rising in her voice. "We developed it!"

"Yeah, yeah, Sweetheart," Haymitch responds, weary and cynical. "That's just how the company works, sadly. Apparently they've got twenty or so spare engineers in Seattle who need things to do, and what would be better for them to take on than this existing, running thing? Now, you six have a choice. Either move offices, or move teams. The Board of Directors has made it clear that they'll be more than happy to relocate all - or some - of you there. What would you do?"

I take a deep breath to still my raging heart, as I watch chaos unravelling around me.

**to be continued...**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 Sydney's botanical garden, located right next to the Opera House.

2 It is a popular idea to get married on the water in Sydney, it being Harbour City and all, so there are this special kind of boat dubbed the "floating glass ballroom". This kind of boat has walls made entirely of glass for view and aesthetic reasons, and usually go painfully slowly it just cruises back and forth on the harbour.

3 There's an actual Guylian chocolate cafe near the opera house.

4 Circular Quay is the general area where the Opera House and Harbour Bridge is. The Overseas Passenger Terminal for ships is located there.

5 A weekend-only market at The Rocks, the inland area West of Circular Quay.

6 Yeah, yeah, naughty Jo... but, hey, they're all just humans, right? ;)

* * *

Alright, guys! Thanks for reading and making it here. We're nearing the end of the story here - one more chapter and we're done. Then, an epilogue.

See you soon with the grand finale of Everlark (and of the story!). Stay gold!


	15. Chapter 15

**AN: **Hello! Thanks for reading, following, and favouriting. Special thanks to CJStoriesAndObsessions, Ryden20, axes tridents and snares, and De-BardatBoston for the reviews. You all rock :).

This chapter is the last one before the epilogue. Here we'll tie up Katniss and Peeta's arc of the story. Hope you like it!

**Disclaimer: **Just borrowing Suzanne Collins's stuff here.

* * *

**Chapter 15**

**Katniss**

_Haymitch gave us two extra sick days at the end of that fateful, painful meeting, to be used on Monday and Tuesday._

"_Just gotta tell everyone you've got nasty bouts of stomach flu," he said, as he herded us out of the meeting room. "I'm sure they'll stop asking."_

_Finnick dragged all of us to the Darling Harbour ferry terminal right after we exited the building, dazed and confused and fuming. Jo ranted and ranted to no end. Annie let out a couple of sniffles, before composing herself and looking down distantly. Gale was quiet. As in, eerily quiet._

_And Peeta had my back, all the way to the terminal and in the ferry._

"_Decision, guys," Finnick called somewhat quietly, once we're cruising out of Darling Harbour. "Luna Park(_1)_ or Manly(_2)_?"_

_There was only one answer, and it was, "whatever", so Finnick called the shots and took us all to Luna Park. It was still closed when we got there, so we ended up sitting at Milsons' Point cafe, talking random stuff of no particular order as none of us really wanted to talk about it._

_I spent the whole day sitting on various benches, watching the five of them going on different rides and playing different games. Oh, and playing that one round of shooting game, for which I scored a big teddy bear. Jo refused to take it when I bequeathed it to her, so it became my problem now - the whole three feet or so of it. And a bit of joy, actually, as Peeta did that little stunt of carrying it on his back like a small child as we jumped back out at Darling Harbour terminal late in the afternoon. The thing got its own seat as we smashed some serious ribs at Hurricane's(_3)_, and got passed around between the boys ('Daddy' and the 'Uncles', as Jo said) as we waddled back to our apartment building with fully-stretched-out stomachs afterwards._

"_Alright," Jo started talking to the bear, as we all piled in into mine and Jo's living room. "Meet your... uh, cousins, I guess. That's..."_

_She ended up scratching her head, for apparently she only had a name for one of her existing bears - the first one with yellow ribbon on its neck._

_We basically had this massive sleepover party that night. When we woke up on Tuesday morning, it was only Peeta and I left in the living room, though. Finnick and Annie had disappeared across the hallway, into his room. And Gale and Jo - well, they weren't in this unit, they weren't across the hallway, they were nowhere to be seen._

_Peeta and I spent the day talking and watching movies in the living room, for Finnick and Annie didn't come out and Gale and Jo didn't come back until later in the afternoon._

It's seven thirty PM on Tuesday night now, and all of us are sitting around the boys' dining table, in front of the mouthwatering feast Peeta managed to prepare for us. This is a little strange, but my girls and their boys look _happy_, and the chef himself looks really serene. And I... well, I don't know how to best describe this feeling. Liberated? Freed? Unburdened?

It's kind of confusing, but it's nice feeling this way.

"Have you all decided what to do?" Peeta asks, as we pass around the bowls and scoop things out for each other.

"I'm gonna quit and go back to Uni," Annie announces. I turn to my friend in surprise, just to find her smiling widely and dreamily. "I want to be a teacher, and teach programming to high school students."

"I'm quitting too," Finnick says afterwards. "I'm gonna spend some time with Mags whilst I decide what I'm gonna do."

"Make it four," Jo barges in. She turns to Gale, and he pecks her on the lips - they're totally coupled-up these days. "That company has gone to trash. We've just drafted in our resignation letters and applied to get into PhD(4) next semester. Whatcha gonna do, Blondie?'

"I'm gonna go back home to Adelaide."

_No._

My fork slips from my grasp, falling onto the plate with a loud clang at this.

He's going back to Adelaide.

He's not gonna be here.

"Fark, Dude," I hear Gale saying. "For good?"

"No," Peeta corrects. I let out that breath I've been holding, as I pick up my fork and slump over my plate. "A couple of weeks, maybe. Then I'm going to join you guys back here. Can't leave you all alone, don't you know? You'll burn down the unit."

Everyone laughs at this. I'm still pretty much shocked, and don't know what to do, but I find myself laughing along. It comes out weird and forced, but, still, better than nothing I guess.

"Katniss," Peeta then asks me, sounding really cautious. "What are you gonna do?"

"I..."

I'm not gonna stay there in the company, I've decided. I don't think I can do it, after all the things they'd done to me. After they'd taken my idea away from me like that without giving me any real options. Everything's just an illusion there. They made me give my all, only to take more at the end.

I think I no longer love Mockingjay Tech. I'm done playing their games.

"I'm quitting too."

I feel light the second it comes out of my mouth. The liberation I've been feeling - briefly interrupted by that bout of serious talk - starts rushing through my veins again. I'm flying high. I'm soaring. I'm a master of my own destiny.

"Then whatcha gonna do?" Peeta asks again, concerned and gentle.

"I..."

This idea seems foolish, but if don't seize the chance, when else can I do that? Master of my own destiny. That's what I am.

"I'm gonna make an educational startup."

At first, no one says anything.

Then, I hear this.

"Bloody hell, Brainless. The things you do and how easily you do them."

There are claps and these happy noises afterwards, and suddenly, I feel safe. I know I have nothing to fear.

I have these guys and girls around me, and they'll stick with me no matter what.

* * *

"Ready?"

I tear my gaze off the window near our area. It's time to go - nearly. Almost five PM, at what is our last day at Mockingjay Tech. Time to hand in the badges and leave for good.

I've prepared myself and gotten hardened since the decision was made a month ago. I've cleared my desk from all my personal effects. I've taken home my cat mug. Wiped out both the desktop and the work laptop. Spent exactly seven and half day at work every day, just according to contract. Just trying not to get attached.

Yet it's still hard to leave, somehow. Even when what used to be my desk is now empty - all the equipments have been collected - and everyone else is ready to go.

"Come on, Brainless," Jo chides me. "We have this awesome celebration night to go to."

That doesn't do it, somehow. I feel my feet shifting, but my heart's still heavy. I drag myself behind my friends to the reception where we'll hand our badges in, for the first time in a month questioning what I'm doing here.

"Think about that awesome stuff you're gonna do, Katniss," Peeta says, as we all pile out of the door. "You'll really love it."

It can be him, it can be the words themselves, but this one does it, somehow. My resolve comes back, and there's nothing but a firm smile on my face as I hand my badge back to Lavinia.

"I'll miss you guys," she says earnestly. "Good luck with your future endeavours!"

We thank her and wish her all the best with her newly-showing pregnancy (and a redhead kid, though it's not needed for both her and her husband Darius are redheads).

Jo and Finnick - our self-appointed party hostess and host - herd us down to the ground floor and away from the building. The first event of the night is some sunset drinks in Circular Quay, so off to the North we head, past the crowd going back home from work. Today is a Friday, coincidentally. Every important milestone recently have been Fridays. It's not planned, just works that way.

It's early spring now, so the sun has begun setting a bit later. We're still on time to catch the last glimpses of it, from the hidden comfort of that bar under the Opera House.

Next comes the meat-fest at Lowenbrau(5), on the other side of the Quay. None of us girls finished our things, but the boys finished their things plus whatever we don't finish from ours, being boys. Then it's off for another drinks, in a bar so loud and rowdy we end up using sign languages the whole night, and somewhere else I don't think I remember.

I've outdone myself drinking.

The last distinct thing I remember from the night is being helped into a cab and buckled down. Someone slides beside me. I don't know who it is, to start with - just that it's a familiar person and I feel safe - but then he opens his mouth to tell the driver where we live, and I know it's Peeta.

Maybe it's just the drinks. Maybe it's the fact that I no longer have work to hide from reality and the pain I'm feeling now. But I think I cry on his shirt.

The first thing I see when I open my eyes is some white fabric.

Which kind of moves up and down a bit, like it's breathing.

Oh, wait. The wearer is breathing.

I've fallen asleep on someone.

"Sorry!" I scramble up, moaning as a killer headache hits my head. "I..."

That stops right then and right there, as I realise who it was.

I've fallen asleep on Peeta Mellark, on my living room couch.

And he's awake now, watching me with his kind blue eyes.

"You alright?" he asks.

"Y... yeah," I answer. "Just a hangover, I guess."

He pushes me gently to a laying position and gets up to brew something. I don't know what it is, but I just hope it's something good for this headache. I can't really think and see straight now.

"Here," he says, after what seems like ages. "Have this."

I take the steaming mug from him and sip on the thing slowly. It tastes good. I don't know what it is, but it's good.

"It'll take a while, but you'll feel better soon," he explains once I finish the thing. Gently, he pries the mug - my cat mug - off my hands. Our fingers brush. And somehow, I feel this unexplainable jolt in my stomach.

"You right?" he asks, his voice faltering a bit.

"Y... yeah," I stammer out - again. "It's just... it's like... there's a jolt or something."

_Oh, damn you hungover Katniss. Why do you have to be so candid?_

He looks at me.

"I kind of felt it too," he says, gazing sideways a bit as his lips form this shy smile. "It's like..."

He doesn't get to finish that.

Because, somehow, I've pressed my lips on his.

"Wh...huh."

It's clumsy to start with, for I haven't kissed in ages, I think. My last kiss was perhaps Jo, back when we were fresh out of Uni and in desperate need of that hundred bucks we needed to buy our graduation dresses(6) that we accepted that dare from Annie's brother Mike. But then Peeta picks up the pace and starts guiding the kiss, and it's all good.

One kiss finished. Then another one starts. Then another one.

"We're ho... Shiz! GALE, GIVE ME MY PHONE!"

_Damn Jo and her addiction to scandals._

We break apart and pull away from each other. There's a desperate groan from the door, looks like Jo's just missed her shot.

"Where've you been?" I ask her, as I notice that her face - and Gale's for that matter - is kind of a mess, with some smeared lipsticks. And that her hair looks to be standing in all different directions. And that the tights she'd been wearing yesterday is missing, along with her shoes.

"Just having fun," she answers me. "No one had as much fun as Annie did, though. Finnick..."

"We'll clean up and see you guys in a bit," Gale cuts in, as he drags Johanna out of the door - most probably across the hallway. "Finnick and Annie aren't coming back in a while, I guess."

The door slams shut, and it's back to me and Peeta alone in this place, still panting next to each other.

"I'll make you some pancake," he finally breaks the silence.

I watch him quietly, tongue-all-tied, as he gets up and walks to the kitchen.

* * *

Those three kisses were all we had. I felt so awkward afterwards I just avoided him and kept to myself afterwards. Such a stupid, hypocritical thing to do, for all I wanted was actually to see him and have another one - or two, or three, or many.

He left for Adelaide the Tuesday after our last day at work, in some early morning flight. I'd wanted really badly to come seeing him off that day, but it just didn't happen. I woke up when my alarm rang, turned it off, then just sat there on my bed hugging my knees for an hour or so. Until it was too late and I had to text him that I woke up too late.

Three weeks. That's how long he planned his stay there to be. It's only been a week since he's gone now, and I wish he'd just come back here already. It's not the same without him. And it's not because I'm lonely, not because I'm the fifth wheel of my four coupled-up friends. If anything, I'm the most welcomed and most loved fifth wheel in the entire world, I think. They just all won't go out without me, so much that I relent and let them drag me everywhere. It's not that I'm not having fun here. If anything, I'm having more fun than I've had in a while. It's just... incomplete.

We - all five of us - are sitting at Finnick's Grandma Mags's backyard table now, playing some board game and eating some homemade snacks. My mind's not entirely there, though. It's right there where the kisses was, replaying them over and over again for I just can't stop. I don't quite remember things clearly, thanks to the hangover I had back then, but I still remember that jolt in my stomach. The painful yet beautiful twists.

I want to feel it again. Don't know why, but I want it.

"Brainless! Are you playing?"

I snap out of my thoughts and look at the board. Oh, right. It's my turn now. What I'm supposed to do? I don't think I heard the rules being read at all.

"Oh, nevermind," Jo chides again, rolling her eyes. "She's too lovesick to play."

I shoot her a glare, only to get a don't-you-lie snarl and another eyeroll.

"Let's pause this for a while," she then says, kicking her chair back. "I need a couple of words with Brainless here."

She drags me across the yard, to the corner where a small gazebo with a single bench sits. I fall along with her as she throws her butt carelessly on the bench, sending Mags's poor dog - who's been napping under it - scrambling with some whines.

"Listen!" she balks at me. I turn my head petulantly and cross my arms on my chest, just because. Jo surely knows I hate being told what to do, and surely she won't mind getting this from me. "I know you hate it when I play my big sister card, but I've got no other choice with you now. So, just sit back and hear my rant."

I get up and make a step towards where the others are sitting now, only to be pulled forcefully back onto the bench.

"You're a fool, Katniss Everdeen. You know that, right?"

"No," I disagree, keeping my eyes forward the whole time. "I can't see why I'm a fool."

"Oh, Brainless."

Silence. Looks like I've made Jo speechless, for once.

"You know you like him, right?"

I don't nod, and don't shake my head. I think I know I like him. I just... I don't think I should let anyone know.

"Brainless!"

"Yes, yes, I know!" I snap back. "I know I like him."

Jo tilts her head and exhales loudly.

"Then why are you sitting here at the moment?"

I don't get her. What's the connection between that, and me liking Peeta?

She sees my confusion, seemingly, for she huffs and pulls out her smartphone.

"Brainless," she mutters under her breath, both exasperated and amused. "Looks like I've got to get this going for you."

"Whatcha gonna do?" I ask her.

She just shrugs and continues jabbing things on her phone.

"Jo! What are you doing?"

I lunge for her phone, but she's quicker than me. I fall painfully on my elbows onto the bench, moaning as I feel the impact. She doesn't even wait, or have another look. She's crossed the yard back to the table, and I can see her relaying a plan to Annie and the boys now.

"Brainless! You broke your elbows there?"

She's hollering at me now. Shiz. What's she doing, really? She's supposed to be on my side! Not an enemy like this.

"You wish," I grumble, as I get up and stride back to where they are. There are grins on everyone's faces when I get back there - Gale's even stifling a laughter - but I don't care. I snatch Jo's phone, out of her hand. She lets it go this time. Whatever happened must have happened.

"Your flight leaves in four hours, Brainless," Jo tells me, as my eyes start recognising Qantas's booking page on the screen. "You'd better get your arse out of here quick, for you still have to pack."

"Where are you sending me?" I demand her.

She stomps on the ground.

"Duh!" she yells in my ears. "Are you that thick, really? You're going where Loverboy is, Brainless. Adelaide. Or Radelaide - or whatever it is. Today."

"I'm gonna call my Mum now, just in case you can't stay at his place," Gale says. There's this amused grin on his face, as he gets up and jabs a number on his phone. "We do have a spare room."

"I'd call Peet to let him know you're coming," Finnick chimes in. He gets up and touches Annie's shoulder lightly, before disappearing into the house. "You girls would better get going."

I stand stunned there, as Jo and Annie get to work tidying up the table. And am still standing there, as they all finish with their business. It's only when Jo drags me out of there that I move along, my brain still not believing what's going on.

I'm flying out to see him.

* * *

And thus here I am now, standing before the gate separating the secure area of Adelaide airport and the baggage carousel area outside. Waiting for that rush of courage I need to step out there.

What's waiting for me? What if he can't make it? What if... what if he bails out?

Finnick told me he said "yes" to picking me up in the airport, but this pessimistic part of me tells me that I'll be dreaming to hope for that.

My phone's in my hand. Still turned off, from the landing. I don't even have the courage to switch it back on, in case there's this text telling me he can't make it.

Gosh, I'm scared now.

"You right?" a kind-sounding woman asks.

I turn to her, and attempt a small smile for her and the three children hanging off her legs.

"Ya, I'm fine," I say, with this silent prayer that my voice will come out alright. "Just waiting."

"Oh, alright. Have a good night!"

Night. What time is this? Right. Eight thirty, Adelaide time. It's getting pretty late.

I guess it's now or never.

I take in that deep breath and step forward. One step. Two steps. Three steps. And many more, until I'm out there in the baggage carrousel area. Right to where my escort of the night is waiting.

He hasn't changed at all, really, since I last saw him last week. Blue eyes, blonde curls, and warm, kind smile.

And he's there. He hasn't abandoned me.

I choke a sob, for suddenly I feel so light.

"Hey."

"Hey."

I don't know what happens, but we shared an embrace. Not that fleeting, friendly one. We really embraced each other. I can't remember the last time I really do something like this, with someone aside of my girls.

"Come on," he says. "Mum's got the spare room ready for you."

We make it to the cab rank and into one, finally. I plop down at the back, and he plops down next to me, unusually silent and nervous.

"You mind a detour?" he asks, as we glide down Sir Don Bradman Drive.

"No, not at all," I let him do it, though my heart's jumping on my chest. "Go on."

I might be imagining it, but he looks visibly relaxed afterwards.

"Alright," he tells the taxi driver. "Let's take a left to North Terrace instead, then. We're going to the University of Adelaide."

_The University_?

I wonder what's on there tonight, but if he wants to do it, then be it.

We arrive there ten minutes later. He pulls his wallet out to pay for the cab, and firmly holds my arm in place as I take out my wallet to reimburse him.

"I'm paying tonight," he says. "Playing by the rule, you know."

Whatever rule that is, I just let him be and let him take me and my bag through the lanes of the campus. It's hard to see where we are heading in the dark, really, but I somehow remember walking through these lanes.

He's taking me to that building where I first saw him.

And yes, I'm right. He stops there, right on that foyer where I'd fainted those years ago. Right where he'd given me his cheese bun.

"I know this sounds so high school," he then begins, sounding sheepish as he says so. "But would you go out with me?"

At this, a paper bag is placed in my hand. One with a Mellark logo, as in those years ago. And I know what must be inside it.

His gift for me is a cheese bun.

And I'm a goner. Maybe I've been stupid for not being able to see it all along. Maybe I've been too damaged to trust before, too suspicious and broken. But I know what I want now, and that's what I'm going for.

I'm ready to cross that line.

My arms around his neck, I tiptoe and press my lips on his. It takes him by surprise, at first, but at the end, it goes like the ones on my living room couch had, steady yet passionate.

"So," he says at the end, as we lean against the outer wall of the building laughing. "Is that a yes?"

"Yep," I answer him. "Just let me eat my cheese bun first, though. Just realized I haven't eaten since lunch."

He laughs and kisses me on the temple, before letting me eat in peace.

**And there are many, many other lines they'll cross later. As individuals, as a couple, as a group with their beloved friends. But right now, that one line has been crossed, and this is it.**

* * *

**Glossary**

1 Luna Park is Sydney's Theme Park, located next to the North pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge

2 Manly is a beachy suburb North of CBD. It's popular with tourists, and the easiest way to get there from the CBD is by ferry.

3 Hurricane's grill is a famous restaurant flagship in Sydney, known for serving whole racks of ribs on a bed of french fries/chips. There's one in Darling Harbour.

4 Doctorate program, in case it's not clear :).

5 A German restaurant at The Rocks. I used to be a vegetarian, and I've never belonged whenever I went there :P.

6 The graduation gowns here in Australia are often not fully closed on the front, and they stop around your knees. You've got to wear something underneath - usually a short semi-formal dress if you're a girl, and shirt and pants if you're a guy.

* * *

Alright, guys. So... yes, this is this end.

It's been my intention all along to wrap this story up once they were all together. Once they've all realised what kind of games they were playing, and that there would be better games to play. Well, they were there now... And thus that's it :).

I'm going to post the Epilogue and the final thank you notes in a couple of days. Till then!


	16. Epilogue

**Epilogue: 15 Years Later**

**Peeta**

Fifteen years ago, I asked Katniss to go out with me with a cheese bun in hand. She said she would, then told me to let her finish the bun for she was starving. And I did.

She became my girlfriend for two years afterwards. Then I decided I wanted a change, and put on another proposition to her. I asked her to marry me. She said yes, then asked for her cheese bun. Lucky I've stashed one into my bag, next to that little box which had that _sparkler - _the thing her Aunt Effie, Gale's family, Johanna, Annie, and Finnick insisted that I get when I asked them for her hand. The ring got pretty much smudged five minutes after it was on, but it didn't matter. We ended up getting it cleaned anyway for the wedding, which happened fifteen months later.

We were the last ones to tie the knot in our friendship group, actually.

Finnick and Annie went first. It was a very easy decision for them, having known that they only wanted each other. The wedding happened the next spring after we left Mockingjay Tech, a year and a bit after they officially got together. Now, they have three kids, a big house on the water here in Sydney metropolitan area, and a dog. Still the perfect couple and the perfect family.

Gale and Johanna followed fairly closely, six months behind. They'd gotten pregnant by accident, and Johanna's uncle Blight threw a fit. He threatened Gale with an axe. Needless to say, they had to hastily put together a wedding to keep everyone alive and out of jail. Not to say it was a decision they regretted, though. Johanna and Gale are still together today, and in fact just had yet another accidental baby, little brother to their two daughters.

By the time Katniss and my time came, our godchildren - our friends' first children - were already toddling around. Katniss Aunt Effie insisted - _demanded _- that we had them as page boy and flower girl, and thus we did, upon Johanna and Gale and Finn and Annie's consent. It didn't go too well. Their dads ended up carrying them up the aisle for they just kept walking onto the pews. It did stir something in Katniss, though, that she stopped fretting about having kids that night.

Well, it didn't happen straight away for us, for some unknown reasons which actually worked in our favour. Three months after the wedding, Katniss's little educational startup, "LINES", was granted funding by some interested investors. Finnick and I - who were already there as part of it - had fought our best to help her, but still, it was too hectic. It was still crazy even after Annie and Johanna and Gale took a year off their degrees to help, and only stopped being crazy as we started hiring a year and a half later. Willow was born the day LINES moved into its first real office in Sydney CBD, three years after the wedding. Johanna had to snatch Katniss's phone away and hide it. She wouldn't stop conference-calling Finnick and Gale in the office for this work-related stuff, in between her contractions.

Willow's little brother Ryan - Katniss nicknamed him 'Rye' - made his appearance two years later, on the day our little startup went public. By this time, Annie, Johanna, and Gale had all dropped their degrees in order to commit to LINES, and we've occupied three whole floors of this office tower in CBD. I remembered Katniss being really grumpy that day, for they were having this pizza-and-cake-feast in the office to celebrate the happy occasions, whilst she was having this forcep-assisted delivery in the hospital.

That night, I sneaked her some Maccas. And straight away, she was happy again.

Her fast food habit continues, behind the children, of course, until today. Nowadays, whenever little things happen and she gets angry or sad, I'll just have to find the next Maccas or KFC and she'll be happy again. Well, not all of the times. It's not a big problem, though, for we still have the cheese buns.

And it's cheese buns that I'm bringing for our bi-weekly Sunday potluck this time. Nothing else would do it this time. Katniss's mood has been pretty sulky since the morning. Today we'll have to make that announcement she's been delaying forever.

We've got another bun in the oven.

It's not that Katniss's unhappy with that. She's ecstatic. Problem was, she's already gone and made fun of Johanna and Gale when they had their latest accident last year. It's the revenge from Johanna she's not looking forward to. Especially with all the hormones making her super-sensitive for the moment.

"You ready?" I ask her as we stand at Finnick and Annie's front door.

She just shakes her head and huffs. It doesn't look like we have another choice for the time being, though. Willow, who is excited to see the other kids, has pressed the doorbell for us. It will be matters of seconds before this little party started.

"Yo, Guys!" Finnick greets us, as he opens the door. "Do come in! We've been waiting for you."

He then bends down and whispers something to Rye, who perks up and runs into the house right then.

"What are you telling my kid?" Katniss demands, being the fierce Mama Bear she is.

"Nothing dangerous, really," Finnick answers, confident and boisterous as he usually is. "Just the fact that Shell's got this new game they can play together."

Shell - her name is Michelle, but everyone calls her that - is Finnick and Annie's youngest, who's now around Rye's age.

"Is Lex here, Uncle Finn?" Willow asks, polite but hopeful.

"Oh, yes, she is!" Finnick answers. "She's now programming that robot with Dylan and Andy, that looks like so much fun."

Dylan, Finnick and Annie's eldest, and Andy - Andrea - who is Gale and Johanna's first accidental baby, are now thirteen and well-trained in programming. I remember their kindergarten teacher calling their parents in one day, for they'd both started counting at zero instead of one like other kids in true programmer fashion. Annie just smiles at this, and Finnick and Johanna even found it hilarious, but Gale was somewhat disturbed. He made sure his second daughter, Lex - Alexandra - knows the difference between the 'programmers' count' and 'normal people's count'. It didn't work, and we all still got called in by the kindergarten teacher, so all of us decided not to bother afterwards. I think Finnick and I actually high-fived each other when we got called in by Shell and Rye's teacher.

"And where's Noah?" Willow then asks again, this time more shyly.

Noah, who's the same age as Lex and Willow, is Finnick and Annie's middle boy.

"He's busy making this flying circles on his laptop. You should check on what he's doing."

"May I?" Willow then turns to me and Katniss.

"Sure," I answer her. "Go find him."

She dashes in at this, and Katniss smiles this half-glum smile. She told me a few weeks ago that she thought Willow had a crush on Noah.

"She'll grow out of it," Finnick attempts to make her happy again. "They're just kids."

"Look at yourself," Katniss shoots back at him.

We look at each other and laugh at this, for it's kind of funny and there's nothing we can do for the time being.

Finnick steps aside and we walk in. The house's a perfect mixture of pretty things and chaos - of Annie and Finnick, really. The kids are everywhere in the house - on the floor, on the dining table, in the living room. And there's Gale, pacing back and forth in the middle of the room with little Jesse in his arms. Johanna has seemingly put him on baby duty again. A perfect revenge, for he sometimes still doesn't know when to stop working.

"About time, Brainless."

Now, that's Johanna, who's standing in the kitchen. On her side, stands Annie who waves at us excitedly.

"You ready?" I whisper to Katniss.

She still shakes her head.

Oh, well. There's still this whole gathering to convince her, after all.

**The End.**

* * *

So... we're here guys. This is it.

I'd like to thank you all for this amazing journey. My readers, followers, favouriters, kudoers, subscribers, bookmarkers - those email notifications and those number of the statistics tab were major motivations for me. All of my reviewers, both from ff and AO3. Your kind words meant a lot to me, and made my days. De-BardatBoston, whose faith in this story encouraged me to keep writing. Ryden20, MTK4FUN, MaidenAlice, and este13, who were so enthusiastic about "Lines". Other people who've reviewed this story at its early stages, and those who've left kind reviews after the last chapter. You guys are all gold.

I don't think I'll venture to the world of modern day AUs again in the near future. I've got a Canon Divergence project, "A Tale of Two Districts", going on, and an AU in Panem project lined up afterwards. There are several modern day AU ideas I'm toying with, but I don't think I'll pursue them anytime soon. When I do, though, I hope that we can all meet again. "Lines" audience, you're an awesome crowd! :)

Stay gold people! And hope you're having a great time there.


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